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X, 



HEARTHS AND HOMES 
OF OLD LYNN 



This Edition is 
strictly limited to 
Five Hundred copies. 

This Copy is 

296 



HEARTHS AND HOMES 
OF OLD LYNN 

WITH 

STUDIES IN LOCAL HISTORY 



by NATHAN MORTIMER HAWKES 
Author of "In Lynn Woods with Pen 
and Camera." Editor of "Commonplace 
Book of Richard Pratt," etc., etc. 



Lynx, Mass. 
Thos. P. Nichols & Sons, Publishers 

1907 



Fit 



Copyright Entry 

class a ** c " No ' 

COPY B. 



COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
NATHAN MORTIMER HAWKES. 



s 






INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED 
TO MY DAUGHTER 

Alirp liiarokrs 

WHO HAS BEEN MY CONSTANT COMPANION, MY 

AMANUENSIS, THE COPYIST OF EVERY 

LINE OF MY PEN OR PENCIL, MY 

CRITIC, COMMENTATOR, AND 

SPUR TO EFFORT IN 

SUNSHINE AND 

SHADOW 



" The hills are dearest, which our childish feet 
Have climbed the earliest; and the streams most sweet 
Are ever those at which our young lips drank, — 
Stooped to their waters o'er the grassy bank." 



WHITTIEK 



PREFACE 



THIS book is an ingathering of sketches, ad- 
dresses, and local historic studies, most of 
which have been printed in some form, from 
time to time, of late years. 

The present publication is due to the advice of, 
perhaps too zealous, friends, who have urged the 
compilation. 

In a prefatory note to some of these sketches, 
written in 1888, this language was used : - 

There is not a nook-shotten locality in Old Essex 
which has changed less in a hundred years than this 
charming river-valley, where these sedate places 
complacently hold their own, heedless of innovations 
about them. 

The writer loves every tree, rocky hillside, brook, 
woodland path and recollection associated with them. 
The writing of these slight hints concerning them 
has been a pleasure, which will be heightened if 
the reading shall interest others. 

Changes were then apprehended. Some have hap- 
pened, and many more are impending. 

Some elderly people were named in the text. Of 
course these have mainly passed away in the inter- 
vening years. In a few instances note has been 
made of the decease of a person named or described. 



PREFACE 

The author is not vain enough to think that these 
rambles in the olden time could not be re-touched 
and improved, but as they were written and given 
out they must remain. 

One motive in the local studies in this book is to 
recall some of the scenes, incidents, happenings and 
worthies of the old town, not perhaps overlooked 
by other writers, but having to the author a deeper 
interest, which he trusts may be shared by other 
descendants of the lovers of the people of the 
planting days. 

The storehouse of Lynn's historic treasures is so 
well filled, and the explorers in the hidden lore are 
so few, that I am confident that no one's preserves 
will be trenched upon in these slenderly connected 
gleanings. 

A few instances of double dating will be noticed. 
The chronology followed is that of the records, which 
is old style to September 13, 1752, inclusive. The 
change from old style to new style is so generally 
known that no further explanation is required. 

This is only a slight fragment of the work prom- 
ised, a part of which I trust yet to execute, but 
it has seemed expedient to put this much in con- 
venient type. 

N. M. H. 
Lynn, Massachusetts, 
November 1, 1906. 



FOREWORD 



I GLADLY accept the responsibility of having urged 
the bringing of these papers and addresses into 
a volume by themselves. They well deserve this en- 
during form, and will win their place both as history 
and literature. In them has been garnered the fruit 
of years of intelligent and sympathetic study. Their 
style is as delightful as it is characteristic of their 
author. 

But to every lover of old Lynn these sketches and 
addresses will have a charm and value distinctly their 
own. For, more than history or literature, they are 
the offspring of the author's pious affection for the 
place of his birth, for its fathers and founders, and 
for those days when the men of Lynn were men of 
Massachusetts Bay. Nor has this affection blinded 
him. On the contrary it has inspired and led him to 
a deeper knowledge of earlier New England, and to a 
clearer insight into its character, its standards of con- 
duct and endeavor. Through that intuition which 
is born only of the truest sympathy, our author 
so well understands the men of by-gone genera- 
tions, that they have moulded his inmost thought, 
and the reader will sometimes feel that they are 
themselves addressing him. But our author not only 
comprehends these men ; he knows where they lived 



FOREWORD 

and how. He traces their family relations and makes 
us feel that "there is love and courtship and eager 
life and high devotion up and down all the lines of 
every genealogy." He helps us connect the simple 
annals of early Lynn with the wider interests first of 
the colonies and at length of the nation. 

President Woodrow Wilson has well said: "A spot 
of local history is like an inn upon a highway; it is a 
stage upon a far journey; it is a place the national 
history has passed through. There mankind has 
stopped and lodged by the way." This figurative 
description expresses with singular and literal aptness 
one of the notable relations of earliest Lynn to the 
life of the Colony. Here ran the country highway 
connecting the more important commercial towns, 
and here for more than one hundred and sixty years 
in the old Tavern by Saugus River the men of New 
England stopped and lodged by the way. 

But in that old Lynn where so many thus lodged, 
the author of this volume has spent a lifetime. Where 
others tarried he has been constant. He loves the 
olden time and its people. They have been his fa- 
vorite theme for thought and study, and he has the 
passionate longing to make others see and know them 
even as they are seen and known by him. And so it 
is that when we go with him to the neglected site of 
some old homestead — wholly forgotten by the Lynn 
of to-day — we shall see him stand with uplifted eyes, 
as he recounts its life drama long ago enacted, in 
which, however simple, there were all the romance, 
the joy, and the tragedy of human experience. 



FOREWORD 

It is this more vital and intimate knowledge of the 
earlier days which commands our attention, notwith- 
standing all that may be said by those who believe 
that nothing of value about the past can be gleaned 
except from its written records. It is this sort of 
local history which, by making days that are gone 
more sacred, enables us to divine something of what 
the future should be. 

It will be seen from his Preface that the author of 
this volume is very modest in estimating the value of 
his work, but it is safe to venture the prophecy that 
the reader will often be impressed by a firm grasp 
of historic facts and of their wider relations, and will 
find genuine pleasure in the quaint originality of the 
author's point of view. It will not be too much to 
say of him, as was said of another : " Everything he 
touched he brightened, as after a month of dry weather 
the shower brightens the dusty shrubbery of a sub- 
urban villa." 

Benjamin N. Johnson. 

Lynn, Massachusetts, 
December IS, 1906. 




A PIONEER SCENE (WOLF PIT) 



CONTENTS 



PART I. 
Heaith* <i»d Homes of Old Lynn. 

PAGE 

Lynn 1 

Lynn Hotel 9 

The Abijah Boardman House 13 

Oaklandvale 23 

A Homestead by Grace of the Indians .... 33 

An Ancient House in North Saugus .... 45 

Noted Names upon a Revolutionary Commission . . 53 

The Tarbell Place 57 

A Quaker Home on the Downing Road .... 61 

Notes on and about a Saugus Pond .... 73 

The Iron Works Mansion 79 

The Vinegar Hill Circuit 91 

Rev. Joseph Roby and His Times 101 

The Flagg-Gray House 109 

The Meeting-House of the Second Church in Lynn . Ill 

The Meeting-House of the Third Parish in Lynn . 115 

The Puritan Birthright 119 



CONTENTS 

PART II. 

Studies in Local History. 

PACK 

A Chapter in the Story of the Iron Works . . 129 

Captain Robert Bridges, Founder of the First Iron 

Works in America 149 

Evolution of the Town from the Parish . . 159 

Colonial Land Titles 179 

The Cycle Days of New England 195 

Essex Farms — The Cradles of American Homes . . 219 

Lynnfield in the Revolution 245 

Why the Old Town House Was Built .... 263 

John Endicott and the Red Cross Ensign ... 281 

High Rock 293 

PART III. 

Individual Sketches. 

James Robinson Newhall 301 

Cyrus Mason Tracy 325 

Samuel Hawkes 333 

Index 339 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

The Elkanah Hawkes House Frontispiece "" 

A Pioneer Scene (Wolf Pit) xii 

Initial — Fire-place 1 

Western Entrance of the Central Part of Lynn (from old print) 10 

The Abijah Boardman House opp. 13- 

The Elkanah Hawkes House (late view) . . . opp. 31/ 
The Hitchings-Draper-Hawkes Place .... opp. 33- 
Fishing Rock .......... 44 

Indian Rock 46 

Ezra's Rock 52 

Revolutionary Commission (reproduced from original) . opp. 55" 

Hawkes Pond from Fuller Hill 56 

The Tarbell House opp. 59' 

Hawkes Pond opp. 61 ' 

Hannibal, Sexton of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House . 65 

Cranberry Meadow opp. 69-' 

Wayside Rest 72 

Appleton's Pulpit opp. 75 ^ 

The Iron Works Mansion ...... opp. 79^ 

Breed's Pond 90 

Ye Glen Pirates See ye Frigate 92 

Garrison House (restored) 99 

The Roby Elm opp. 101- 

Lynn from Pine Hill 108 

The Meeting-House of the Second Church in Lynn 

(Lynnfield) opp. Ill 

The Meeting-House of the Third Parish in Lynn (Saugus) opp. 115 

Glen Lewis Pond from Mt. Hermon 118 

Cinder Banks, Saugus River opp. 129- 

Howlett's Mill (site of Gifford's Iron Works) . . opp. 147 
The Flagg-Gray House (rear view — Marion Street) opp. 149^ 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE . 

The Old Tunnel Meeting-House opp. 159 / 

The Lantern Path 178 

Castle Hill from Walden Pond opp. 195 J 

Hart's, in Lynn 197 

The Triple Ways 218 

Sunset on Walden Pond opp. 229 

The Flagg-Gray House opp. 237' 

Walden Pond Road 244 

Penny Brook Road 280 

Oceanfront from Highlands ....... 292 

High Rock, 1628 294 

High Rock Tower (1905) opp. 297 ' 

James Robinson Newhall opp. 301 

Cyrus Mason Tracy opp. 325 ' 

Samuel Hawkes opp. 333 

Samuel Hawkes' House 334 

Overlook Crag 338 



PART I 
Hearths and Homes of Old Lynn 



LYNN, ESSEX COUNTY, 
MASSACHUSETTS : 




PURITAN settlement - 
made less than ten years 
after the Pilgrims land- 
ed on Plymouth Rock. 
Its sea front, upon 
which beats the cease- 
less ebb and flow of the 
Atlantic, is included in 
the magnificent Massa- 
chusetts Bay, one of the 
out-posts of which Prince 
Charles, at Captain John 
Smith's request, named 
" Cape Ann," and the 
other was named by Gosnold "Cape Cod." Within 
the Bay it lies between Salem, the first seat of Puritan 
occupation in Massachusetts, and Boston, the perma- 
nent capital. 

High Rock stands like a citadel of feudal Europe, 
around the base of which the town has grown from 
the sea on the south to the woods on the north. 

A gleaming girdle of hard sand separates the har- 
bor from the beach, reaches out to the twin Nahants 



Hearths and Homes 

- a little terrestrial paradise — while the bright light 
upon Egg Rock warns the mariner that ours is a rock- 
ribbed coast. 

The first white men known to have trod the soil of 
Lynn were Edmund Ingalls, Francis Ingalls, William 
Dixey, John Wood and William Wood. These men 
were of Captain John Endicott's Colony, who, as the 
advance guard of the great Puritan exodus from 
England, landed in Salem, in 1628. These five, and 
perhaps others, strayed over to Lynn, five miles away, 
in the early summer of 1629. The organized settle- 
ment of Lynn took place a year later. In June, 1630, 
John Winthrop, the Governor, bearing the Charter 
granted by Charles the First, with eleven vessels and 
over a thousand immigrants, arrived in Salem Harbor. 
After a few days' tarry at Salem, Winthrop sailed to 
what was soon to be named Boston Harbor, at the 
mouth of Charles River, and established the first seat 
of government and the first church at Charlestown. 
On account of lack of good water, Winthrop, with a 
majority, soon removed across the harbor to Shaw- 
mut, which they called Boston in honor of the old 
English town of that name. 

When Winthrop landed, it was the intention to re- 
main together and begin a single settlement. This 
purpose they were soon compelled to abandon. 

Thomas Dudley, the Deputy Governor, who had 
been a soldier in the Low Countries and was con- 
nected with the family of the Puritan Nobleman, 
the Earl of Lincoln, two of whose daughters were 
with the Colonists, wrote a letter, dated March 28, 



of Old Lynn 

1631, to the Countess of Lincoln, relating to the 
settlement. 

In it he says : " We were forced to change counsel, 
and for our present shelter to plant dispersedly - 
some at Charlestown, which standeth on the north 
side of the mouth of Charles River ; some on the 
south side thereof, which place we named Boston (as 
we intended to have done the place we first resolved 
on); some of us upon Mistick, which we named Med- 
f orcl ; some of us westward on Charles River, four 
miles from Charlestown, which place we called Water- 
town ; others of us two miles from Boston, in a place 
we named Roxbury ; others upon the river of Saugus, 
between Salem and Charlestown ; and the Western 
men four miles south from Boston, at a place we 
named Dorchester." 

Dudley speaks of the " River of Saugus," which is 
an Indian name and signifies "extended," suggested, 
it is said, by the broad, salt marshes that spread over 
a wide territory upon its banks. 

The Indians applied the name to the region lying 
between Boston and Salem; the river itself they 
called " Abousett." The English settlers applied it to 
the beautiful river, and for a few years the settle- 
ment itself was called "Saugus." 

The Town of Lynn never had a formal incorpora- 
tion. Its settlers were members and grantees of the 
Corporation known as the "Governor and Company 
of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." 

This Corporation, transplanted from London to 
Massachusetts, assumed all powers of government, 



Hearths and Homes 

and the participation of the freemen of Lynn, or 
Saugus as it was then called, in the First General 
Court of the Colony in 1630, was a recognition of the 
plantation, and gave it equal standing with Boston, 
Salem and the other participants in that first Great 
Court of Massachusetts. 

In 1634, the number of freemen had so increased 
that it became expedient to send Deputies in place of 
the whole number. 

In that first House of Representatives, eight towns, 
including Lynn or Saugus, were represented. The 
Lynn members were Nathaniel Turner, Edward Tom- 
lins and Thomas Willis. 

In 1637, the Indian name of Saugus was changed 
to Lynn, in honor of Rev. Samuel Whiting, the Pastor 
who had formerly officiated at St. Margaret's Church 
in Lynn Regis, England. 

Colonial Lynn had its centre of interest and busi- 
ness activity, in 1643, on the banks of the Saugus 
River, at the head of tide water, or about where 
Scott's Mills in Saugus now stand. 

On the eastern side of the river at this point, 
owing to the public spirit of the late Andrew A. 
Scott, there is to be seen a grove of white pines, 
which have had no equals since the pioneer axe 
began its havoc. 

Near by is the great bank of scoria, upon which 
the snows of two hundred and fifty bleak winters 
have fallen, which marks the spot where the settlers 
of Massachusetts made their first essay in manufac- 
turing — the spot where the die for the " pine tree 



of Old Lynn 

shilling " was cast — the spot where Jenks made the 
first fire engine ever seen in America. 

In 1639, the General Court allowed Lynn fifty 
pounds towards defraying the cost of building a 
bridge over Saugus River. This was the first bridge 
built in Lynn over tide water, and was on the site 
of the one which now marks the dividing line be- 
tween Lynn and Saugus. Its construction materially 
shortened the distance between Boston and the towns 
to the east, and soon diverted the travel to the 
Colonial highway, now known as Boston Street, our 
most famous historic road. 

Over this road, from Cambridge to Newburyport, 
on the 11th of September, 1775, Benedict Arnold led 
the army which General Washington dispatched for 
the conquest of Quebec. This expedition, through 
the unbroken wilds of Maine and Canada, was the 
most wonderful, chivalric and quixotic event of the 
Revolutionary War. Had it been a success, what a 
change would have been made in our history. 
North America would have been wholly American 
instead of one-half remaining English. Arnold 
might have been the pivotal hero of our race, instead 
of the world's champion traitor. 

Over this road, President George Washington 
traveled in his memorable journey from New York to 
Portsmouth, in 1789 ; and over this road, Washing- 
ton's friend, the gallant Frenchman, La Fayette, was 
escorted beneath floral arches in 1824. By this road, 
the Essex Minute Men marched at the Lexington 
alarm, April 19, 1775, to death and to undying fame. 



Hearths and Homes 

The beginning of the present century was a time 
of turnpike building in Massachusetts. These turn- 
pike roads changed the centres of business activity in 
towns. Thus the opening of the Salem Turnpike 
through Lynn, September 22, 1803, made Market 
Square, and Lynn Hotel, with its great stage coach- 
ing business, the scene of travel, in place of the old 
Boston road. 

The first postmasters had been located on Boston 
Street. In 1808, Jonathan Bacheller became post- 
master, and kept the office in his building, still stand- 
ing 1 west of the old burying ground, opposite the 
Lynn Hotel. For twenty years, he distributed the 
mails from this location. 

On the 28th of August, 1838, the Eastern Railroad 
was opened for public travel through Lynn. Imme- 
diately the stage-coaching days were ended, and post- 
office and business moved east towards the railroad. 

The moving of the post-office used to be an index 
to the fluctuations of business. It will be so no 
longer, as what President Cleveland called a " Federal 
decoration " has become an accomplished fact, and all 
branches of the public service now are conducted 
under the roof of the United States building. 

This leads to a word upon our architecture. 

Prior to the war of 1861, women's shoes — the 
staple industry of Lynn — had been made by hand, in 
little shops, about twelve feet square, scattered over 
the town in the yards connected with the dwellings. 

1 Since pulled down to make room for modei-n fiats. 

6 



of Old Lynn 

From 1861 to 1867, the business was revolutionized 
by machinery. This assembled workmen in fac- 
tories, and with the passing away of the little shoe 
shops and the incoming of great factory buildings, 
came more ornate public and private structures. 

The municipality set the example. The City Hall 
was dedicated November 30, 1867, and the people 
quickly responded in the erection of numerous costly 
and ornamental structures, the latest of which is the 
long-needed Public Library building. 

Lynn has lost much of its early acreage by the 
process of setting off new towns. It is to be borne 
in mind that the Puritan age was an age of Parishes ; 
that is, the Parish made the Town, and not the Town 
the Parish. 

The first offspring of the parent town was Reading, 
where a parish had been gathered in 1644. Another 
parish completed its organization in 1720, and, exist- 
ing as the District of Lynnfield for nearly a century, 
became the Town of Lynnfield in 1814. The West, 
or Saugus Parish, became an Ecclesiastical District 
in 1738, and the Town of Saugus in 1815, thus pre- 
serving the original name. Though the age of 
parishes had given way to the age of politics when 
Swampscott was set off, yet the establishment of the 
Swampscott Parish in 1846, was followed by the 
Charter of the Town of Swampscott in 1852, and 
the next year, 1853, Nahant, without ecclesiastical 
or any other adequate excuse, became by fiat of the 
Great and General Court a town. 

While we have lost territory, these towns have 



Hearths and Homes 

prospered under the good, old-fashioned Town Meet- 
ings, which are in closer touch with the tax payers 
than it is possible for City Governments to be, and 
we have had the benefit of their beaches, roads, 
views and suburban restfulness, which are a relief 
from urban noise and utilitarian push. 

Lynn has done its full share in all the crises of our 
history. Its minister, Jeremiah Shepard, led the 
people who deposed Sir Edmund Andros, in 1689. 
Rev. John Treadwell was of the Committee of Safety 
after the Lexington Alarm in 1775. In the Indian 
Wars, at Louisburg, Lexington, Bunker Hill, and in 
the War of the Rebellion, Lynn men were at the 
front. 

At the start an agricultural community, Lynn 
early became and easily held the leading place as a 
shoe manufacturing centre ; of late it has become a 
hive of the General Electric Company's industry. 
Its material progress has been steady, and it has long 
held the position of the largest city in the United 
States, east of Boston. 



LYNN HOTEL. 




|N THE year 1839, John Warner Barber, the 
author of many similar works, published at 

L ""' Worcester a volume, the title of which in brief 

was :— 

HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS, 

BEING A 

General Collection of Interesting Facts, Traditions, 
Biographical Sketches, Anecdotes, Etc., 

RELATING TO THE 

History and Antiquities 

OE 

Every Town in Massachusetts, 

WITH 

Geographical Descriptions. 

Illustrated by 200 Engravings. 

One of the illustrations was a Lynn view. It was 
a rude wood cut. Under it was the legend, Western 
Entrance of the Central Part of Lynn. 

On the following page we have reproduced this 
sketch in half-tone. It is a striking reminder of the 
shifting scenes of Lynn's activities. The central 
building is the famous old coaching station, and Inn 
of the Salem Turnpike Corporation, at West Lynn. 

At the left side of the sketch, in the foreground, 
may be seen hitching-posts for the use of the patrons 



Hearths and Homes 

of the noted "West India Goods" store of Caleb 
Wiley, at the south-westerly corner of Federal Street 
and the Salem Turnpike, now Western Avenue. 

Across Federal Street, where now stands the brick 
factory building occupied by Weber Leather Com- 
pany, appears a corner of the old Tufts house, owned 
by David Tufts, a soldier of the Revolution, later oc- 
cupied by Deacon Richard Tufts, and the house 
where his son, Col. Gardiner Tufts, was born. 




I3lt$ ■ 



Deacon Tufts and Mr. Wiley, with only a pump 
and a street between them, on the "Medford rum" 
question were as far apart as the north and south 
poles. 

The dark three-story brick building, in the left dis- 
tance, was called the Josiah Clough building, which 
outlived its usefulness years ago, when it was demol- 
ished at the widening of Centre Street. Upon its 

10 



of Old Lynn 

diminished site, after its travels, the Old Lynn Acad- 
emy now stands, and shelters Ex-Mayor Baird's 
painting materials. 

The year before Barber's Book was published, the 
Eastern Railroad was opened for travel through 
Lynn (August 28, 1838). Hence the bustling stage 
coaches, which had heretofore been the bright 
feature of the scene, had gone to return no more 
forever. 

The vehicle in the right foreground is of the kind 
known soon after as " prairie schooners," which, with 
the family and household goods, ploughed their way 
across the continent to conquer and populate the 
Empire of the West and the Pacific Coast. 

Beyond the canvas-covered travelling home is 
caught a glimpse of the inclosure of the early bury- 
ing-ground of the Parish of Whiting, Cobbet and 
Shepard. 

The brick buildings on the right are those of David 
Taylor and Chase & Huse, then recently erected. 

Still further, over the Common, appears the tower 
of the First Church, over which Rev. Dr. Parsons 
Cooke had been settled for three years. 

At the extreme end of the Common the steeple of 
the Methodist Church, which Dr. Cooke did not love 
very much, appears. 

The marvels, the glories, the charms, the guests 
and the legends of the old Tavern of the last century 
have captivated the pens and imaginations of our 
Press and History writers. 

We will not enter at this time the portals of the 

ii 



Hearths and Homes 

old hostelry, but simply save the exterior for pos- 
terity. The view was taken at the period of greatest 
depression the West End has ever known. Its 
Bank — the Nahant — located in what is now " The 
Home for Aged Women," had failed in 1836. Henry 
A. Breed, the versatile but unfortunate developing 
genius of the section, had succumbed to the panic. 
The railroad had banished the stage coach. It really 
looked as if the Tavern and the Burying-ground 
would peacefully abide by each other. 

Later came banks and business back to the Market 
Place of the Fathers, and now the busy hive of the 
General Electric Company makes it the centre of a 
new and great community. 



L2 



THE ABIJAH BOARDMAN HOUSE. 




jflN THE very western confines of Saugus, al- 
most upon the Melrose border, stands the best 
preserved specimen of the projecting upper 
story, Colonial house yet in existence in the old town. 
Its location and its peculiar features are known, not 
only to the traveler but to the reader, by the photo- 
graphic studies that have been made of it under the 
name given to this sketch. The place, however, has an 
interest extending far back of the Boardman occupa- 
tion, long continuing and interesting as that has been. 
Counties and towns long played the old-time game 
of battledoor and shuttlecock with this quiet manor 
house. It has been in two counties, Suffolk and 
Essex, and in at least four towns, Boston, Lynn, 
Chelsea and Saugus. It was built when the boundary 
lines of the new towns were a trifle uncertain. Then 
it was determined that it was partly in Boston, which 
ran a long arm out into the country, as far as Read- 
ing and partly in Lynn. Perhaps the house itself 
made a good point to call a bound mark. It certainly 
has survived the heap of stones and white and black 
oak trees so freely used as bounds. 

The occasion of its getting out of the Capital was in 
this wise : The inhabitants of that part of Boston, in 
the district called Winnisimmet, Rumney Marsh and 

13 



Hearths and Homes 

Pullin Point, represented to the General Court that 
" they laboured under great difficulties by reason of 
their remoteness from the body of said town, and 
separated by the river, that renders their attendance 
upon town meetings very difficult ; and have a long- 
time since erected a meeting-house for the publick 
worship of Gocl, in that district," and prayed to be 
set off as a separate town — reasons patriotic and 
religious, and more reasonable than the modern tax 
dodgers' arguments for dismembering ancient towns. 
The General Court responded favorably, and the Act, 
incorporating Chelsea, passed January 10, 1738-9. 
A part of the bound lines given in the Act may be of 
interest in this connection. 

. . . from thence to a crotched tree, marked B. 
L., in the wall between Cheever's and Boardman's 
land, and so the line runs across a small rivulet, and 
to the door of the house of the said Boardman's, 
which is marked B. L., and so through the stack of 
chimn [ie] [ey] s in said house, from thence, across a 
small brook, to a stump of a walnut tree, with a heap 
of stones in said Boardman's field ; from thence to a 
walnut tree marked B. L., on the south side of an hill 
near Felt's house ; from thence to a rock, with a 
heap of stones in land, called the six-hundred-acre 
right. 

This imaginary line ran through the front door 
and through the chimney till early in the present 
century. To a debtor who sought to avoid service of 
writs, or to a criminal who would escape arrest, it 
might have been convenient for its owner to have 

14 



of Old Lynn 

been able to elect his domicile in either county with- 
out going out of doors. But the forehanded tenants 
of the Boardman house were not in such a category. 
They found disadvantages in the doubled civil duties 
and responsibilities. 

Abijah Boardman experienced the inconvenience 
of being spread out over two counties, so he petitioned 
the General Court, that the line dividing the towns 
of Lynn, in the County of Essex, and Chelsea, in the 
County of Suffolk, might be so altered as to include 
his dwelling-house and the land under the same 
wholly in the Town of Chelsea. A special Act, grant- 
ing the prayer, became law June 21, 1803. And 
thereafter, in the language of the Statute, said house 
possessed all the privileges and rights which the 
other houses in said Chelsea possessed. Probably the 
most prized privilege was an exemption from the an- 
nual visit of the Lynn assessors. 

But in spite of all Mr. Boardman's efforts, the old 
house was not to remain attached to the ancient 
Rumney Marsh town, for February 22, 1841, the 
General Court passed another special Act to set off a 
part of Chelsea to Saugus. The West Parish of Lynn 
had in the meantime become a Town under the 
original name of Saugus. The part thus set off was 
a narrow wedge that lay between the western line of 
Saugus and the eastern line of Maiden, now Melrose. 
It included the Boardman farm. So back into Essex 
and Saugus came the Boardman homestead and its 
belongings, there to remain till some new legislative 
whim gives it another toss. 

15 



Hearths and Homes 

In organizing the Puritan Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay, its wise founders sent out with the planters the 
requisite proportion of tradesmen and artisans, such 
as blacksmiths, weavers, masons and carpenters. 
Among these was Samuel Bennet, carpenter. On 
the original grant of lands in Lynn he received a 
share and located on this spot. With the shrewdness, 
which was characteristic among the first settlers, he 
selected for the site of his house a moderate eleva- 
tion, just west of a running rivulet, which came 
down from Castle Hill to water his " horned cattle," 
and to meet at the declivity, south of the house, an- 
other little stream that kept green and fertile his 
meadows. That he was energetic and driving, the 
yellow records of the courts reveal. Bennet was a 
man of the mould required in the planting of a 
Colony in the wilderness. He was full of resources, 
thrifty, adventurous and sharp. In 1639, he was en- 
rolled in the ranks of the Ancient and Honorable 
Artillery Company. He made numerous conveyances 
to men of mark in the new plantation. One of these 
parties was Thomas Marshall, who, after serving the 
English Commonwealth as a Captain in Oliver's 
Army, returned to Saugus, and became landlord of 
the famous old Anchor Tavern, where for more than 
forty years he entertained the traveling public with 
the lavish hospitality of " a fine old English gentle- 
man." He had intimate business and social relations 
with Joseph Jenks, never to be forgotten as the first 
founder " who worked in brass and iron " on the 
Western Continent. 

16 



of Old Lynn 

Mr. Bennet had one grievous fault for that age, 
which we in these degenerate days would deem a 
venial sin. In 1644, the Grand Jury found a true 
bill against him as a " common sleeper in time of 
exercise," for which he was fined 2s. 6d. The more 
active a man's brain and body had been through the 
week, the more surely would both relax and yield to 
the drowsy god during the long drawn out and 
monotonous exercises of the Puritan Sunday. What 
was a rank offence with the elders then seems to us 
rather an evidence of the man's activity in the six 
days of labor, an attempted compliance with pre- 
scribed forms, while Nature unconsciously obeyed the 
Higher Law that commanded rest on the Seventh 
day. 

As an indication of Mr. Bennet's secular activity, 
a deposition, taken in a suit which he had brought 
against the Iron Works Company for £400 for labor, 
is given from the Salem Quarterly Court files (June 
27, 1671). 



"John Paule, aged about forty-five years, sworne, 
saith that living with Mr. Samuel Bennett, upon or 
about the time that the Iron Works were seized by 
Capt. Savage, in the year 53 as I take it, for I lived 
ther, several years, and my constant imployment was 
to repaire carts, coale carts, mine carts, and other 
working materials for his teemes, for he keept 4 or 5 
teemes, and sometimes 6 teemes, and he had the 
most teemes the last yeare of the Iron Works, when 
they were seased, and my master Bennett did yearly 
yearme a vast sum from said Iron Works, for he 

n 



Hearths and Homes 

commonly yearmed forty or fifty shillings a daye for 
the former time, and the year 53 as aforesaid, for he 
had five or six teemes goeing generally every faire 
day." 



Bennet describes himself in his later conveyances 
as of "Romney Marsh, within the bounds of the 
Town of Boston." 

The Boardman who lived in the house when the 
line ran through it, in 1738-39, was William. Its next 
owner was his son, Aaron, to whom he conveyed it 
January 9, 1753. 

In this deed, which was drawn by the noted magis- 
trate of that time, Daniel Mansfield, Esquire, was 
included along with the farm something which is 
not now called real estate. After the description of 
the land follow these words, " together with a negro 
man named Mark." 

In 1762, Thomas Cheever, next neighbor of Board- 
man, made a mortgage of his farm to secure John 
and Aaron Boardman, who had become his sureties 
upon a bond, a condition of which was that he was to 
pay a party in Salem " four hundred good Spanish 
milled dollars of full weight." Spanish dollars be- 
fore the Revolution were a legal tender and in great 
demand in the Colonies. Spain enslaved the natives 
of Mexico and Peru and compelled them to extract 
the silver ore from their mines for the enrichment of 
the mother country. Then the bold and gallant 
English adventurers made an easy pretext for war 
when a rich treasure fleet was on its way across the 

is 



of Old Lynn 

Atlantic and captured the great galleons, and the 
intercepted treasure found its way into the coffers of 
English merchants. They in turn exchanged it with 
the New England Colonists for masts for the royal 
navy, and for cod-fish for their own tables. The coin 
was pure and so popular, and the less said about the 
method of obtaining it the better. Hence the yeo- 
man of Saugus made his trade with the effigy of the 
King of Spain stamped upon metal wrought by 
slaves, and bravely converted by English rovers into 
honest money. 

Aaron occupied it when the Minute Men of Massa- 
chusetts withstood the veteran regulars on Bunker 
Hill ; when Benedict Arnold marched through Sau- 
gus, in that picturesque, daring and tragical expedi- 
tion which General Washington ordered for the 
capture of Quebec — while the weary years of 
despondency were passing till the glad news reached 
even this secluded nook, that Cornwallis had sur- 
rendered at Yorktown, and all men saw clearly that 
the political ties which had galled the settlers were 
severed, and that a new Transatlantic England, which 
the fathers had dreamed of, had become a reality. 
Then came Aaron's son, Abijah. The occupants of the 
house even now are of the Boardman stock, as Mrs. 
Howard and Miss Sarah Boardman, 1 daughters of 
Abijah, are there, passing lives characteristic of and 
befitting a homestead that is not vexed with alien 
tenants — which has only to welcome the young 

iBoth since deceased. The house is now in the possession of 
their nephew, Elmer Boardman Newhall. 

19 



Hearths and Homes 

and mourn the departure of the aged of a familiar 
family. 

So far as it is possible for the blending of landscape 
and human habitation to stand for a mental condition, 
this place has all the cool, calm attributes of serenity. 
It looks as if the world and its passing show had 
never been heeded by it. It just stands there with 
never a thought of time, never a fear for the future. 
Yet there lies danger in its path, for the house- 
wrights of bustling Melrose are already crowding 
along Howard Street, towards these careless fields of 
daisies and clover that fringe and beautify the old 
landmark. Some houses, like some people, boast of 
beauty and strength by outside boldness. This one 
is built massively, but its impressive sturdiness is 
only seen in the interior, whose chamfered American 
oak timbers put to the blush the skill of modern artifi- 
cers in wood. No drill holes are seen in the rocks 
that constitute its cellar walls. These stones are in 
the shape in which they were drawn from the farm 
by the plodding oxen, guided by the dexterous hand 
that long ago lost its cunning. Time, that treats 
mortals so harshly, often has a tender touch and a 
shielding care for the abodes hallowed by recollec- 
tions of the swift coming and going generations of 
men. How impassive this house seemed a moment 
since — now the smoke curls upward in dusky puffs 
towards the blue sky, and instantly the good old pas- 
toral life comes before the eye. The housewife is 
busy within, preparing the stated mid-day meal. The 
yeoman, in response to the signal, draws near the 

20 



of Old Lynn 

spacious barn, with his load of sweet-smelling tim- 
othy and red-top grass. The rest of the picture will 
be readily sketched by those whose happy fortune it 
was to be in touch with rural scenes in the plastic 
days of youth. 

So uncorrupted by the fever of modern ways is this 
place that the dear old clumsy oaken bucket, familiar 
in song, is still splashed into the planter's well, and 
hoisted by the creaking well-sweep supported by the 
long pole. Can anything else ever taste and re- 
fresh like that nectar, greedily drunk, poised on the 
curb, from 

"The old oaken bucket, the iron bound bucket, 
The moss covered bucket that hung in the well " ? 

The question is often asked whether the peculiar 
shape of those rare and historic Colonial houses in- 
dicates that they were built for defensive purposes 
against the Indians. They were certainly not in- 
tended as garrison houses. They were erected along 
the earlier settled coast line, from Newport, Rhode 
Island, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The Indian 
trails of attack were always from the inland woods 
and were warded off before they reached the locali- 
ties where these houses were planted. The project- 
ing upper story indicates that it was built by a well- 
to-do Englishman, in the second half of the seven- 
teenth century, from architectural designs which 
were familiar to him at home. It was simply a loyal 
imitation of wonted forms by the commercial Puritan 
when he set up his tabernacle in the newer, freer 
England which he was founding. 

21 



Hearths and Homes 

American demagogues, in the demand for newly- 
made Irish votes, pretend to dislike England, but 
underlying this the true American has all along- 
imitated and reverenced his Mother England, and 
though, like all Youth, he thinks he has outstripped 
her in many lines of progress, he still has love and 
deference for English ideas and habits. Hence the 
traveler, passing the parvenue villas of Melrose, is 
rested and impressed with a sense of homelikeness 
when he reaches this gateway, which bears so many 
reminders of leafy, rural England. 

Anglophobists sneer at such things, but these feel- 
ings are evidences of the existence in men of the 
better and purer instincts. The hungry child yearns 
for its mother's breast. The boy unconsciously walks 
in his father's ways. The man, when he gets over 
the rough hill of life's voyage, and is upon the shores 
of the unseen future, looks back with glistening eyes 
upon rude, but loved scenes, unheeded when he was 
toiling upward, but now so full of reminiscences of 
life's morning. Perhaps, and indeed often, the old 
homestead is looked upon with tenderer feelings in 
the afterglow of life's sunset than when the eastern 
sun gilds the distant hill tops. These longings for 
the old home grow with years, and the roots reach 
out, not only towards one's own birthplace, but far 
away to the cradle of his race, the land of his stock. 
The poet Campbell voices what many feel without 
comprehending : 

' 'T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 



OAKLANDVALE 




' ' Here are trees, and bright green grass, and orchards 
full of contentment ; and a man may scarce espy the 
brook, although he hears it everywhere. " — Jan Ridd. 

]HE schoolhouse may be taken as a point of 
departure. It is certainly American to be- 
lieve that no better place can be found to 
start from than the public school. 

The Oaklandvale schoolhouse stands upon the south 
side of Main Street. Running northerly from it is 
Forest Street, laid out by the town of Lynn, June 21, 
1763. Main Street, or the old way from Lynn to 
Reading, runs westerly. The two form the eastern 
and southern lines of the estate, which gave the 
name Oaklandvale to the western ward, or school 
district, of Saugus. In fact, the school and the name 
were concurrent. And each came about by a change 
of land title, in 1848. When the proposition to build 
this schoolhouse was before the town meeting, a sort 
of omnibus bill — or, as they call it in Congress, a 
log-rolling scheme, to secure support all around by 
giving each section something — was under discussion. 
Ben Parker, of the Centre, believing that it would 
kill the appropriation, of which he did not approve, 
moved to increase the amount for the Oaklandvale 
building from fifteen hundred dollars to twenty-two 

23 



Hearths and Homes 

hundred. The people happened to be feeling good, 
and the amendment prevailed. Then the neighbors 
turned out and put in the foundation walls free. So 
that the whole appropriation was devoted to the 
building proper, and the result was that the smallest 
school in town had the largest schoolhouse. 

The arable land hereabouts is largely an intervale 
which forks where the two branches of Crystal Brook 
meet, just south of the Abijah Boardman House — an 
old Colonial mansion, well known from its project- 
ing upper story upon the front part of the house. 
One branch of this stream creeps down from Wake- 
field on the north, on a general line with the road. 
The other fork of Crystal Brook comes down from the 
highlands of Melrose on the west. About where the 
Wakefield and Melrose roads unite, the two pebbly- 
bottomed brooklets blend into one, to flow leisurely 
through the ancient farm, which was one of the 
earliest spied-out farming valleys of old Lynn. 

Man subdues and, by diligence, restrains the face 
of Nature. When the first settlers discovered this 
strath, encircled by rocky hills, a dense forest of pine 
covered its surface. The brook meandered through 
meadows carpeted with the uncounted pine needles, 
over which the simple red man noiselessly glided in 
pursuit of game. His wigwam was ever near a run- 
ning stream — not always a water-way that would 
float his birch bark canoe, but such a stream as 
fish could swim in, that he could lose his foot-prints 
in, if haply hostile intruders threatened. 

The white man wanted the land for corn ; he cut 

•24 



of Old Lynn 

away the forest that the sun's rays might kiss the 
earth — that he might not be taken unawares by the 
same hostiles. The Puritan was no worshipper of 
the woods. They were too dense, too oppressive, 
too full of shapes of skulking red men, too full of 
shades and phantoms of the new mysterious world, 
which made life grim and solemn to him. He had no 
mercy for the trees. They were his slaves. They 
ministered to his wants. They gave him shelter and 
they furnished him with fuel for the long winter. 

Hence the trees were swept away, and till about 
forty years ago there was an open plain from the 
point where the Melrose and Wakefield roads meet, 
in a northeastern trend, to the Saugus River at the 
Newburyport turnpike. Within that time, by man's 
design, a great change has been wrought in the face 
of Nature. Agriculture has ceased to be a control- 
ling motive in the use of the land. The tilling of 
the soil has taken on the character of a recreation in 
the hands of men, who, with love of rural life, have 
found their principal vocation in other pursuits. 
They have made farming subsidiary, and have added 
an element of aesthetics to its development. 

The residence of Joseph Haven, his childless uncle, 
drew Elkanah Hawkes to this locality. Mr. Haven 
made his will March 7, 1748-9, in which he named 
his kinsmen, Elkanah and Jonathan Hawkes, as his 
executors and residuary legatees. Jonathan subse- 
quently conveyed his portion of the estate to Elkanah. 
Elkanah died in 1777, and his will was proved Janu- 
ary 16, 1778. The will of Elkanah, who is described 

25 



Hearths and Homes 

"gentleman," shows what were the principal products 
of those times in the items of the careful provision 
made for his widow while she should remain his 
widow. Besides the furniture and a portion of the 
house, she was to have annually "two hundred pounds 
of pork, one hundred pounds of beef, eight bushels 
of Indian corn, four bushels of rye, eight cords of 
wood, twelve pounds of sheep's wool, twenty pounds 
of dressed flax and twelve bushels of the same." 
Thomas, the eldest son and executor, had the custom- 
ary double portion of the real estate, or in this case, 
two-ninth parts. Elkanah and Ezra each had three- 
eighteenths. Two married daughters, Eunice Hitch- 
ings and Sarah Marret, had each one-eighteenth part. 
The three unmarried daughters, Elizabeth, Love and 
Grace, each were to have one-ninth part. The farm, 
after the settlement of his estate, passed into the 
hands of his daughter, Grace Hawkes, "spinster," 
who, on August 9, 1797, conveyed it to Nathan 
Hawkes, of the west parish, and his son Nathan, Jr. 
Nathan, Jr., occupied the house, and his children 
were born in the old house, and here on May 4, 1811, 
his only son, Nathan D., was born, and lived until his 
marriage, when he took possession of the Tarbell 
place, which had been the home of his mother. 

Nathan Hawkes owned and tilled the farm until 
May 5, 1848, when he conveyed the whole estate of 
one hundred and thirty odd acres to Joseph Masury, 
Edward W. Saunders and Marshall S. Brooks. Mr. 
Masury had a half interest, Messrs. Brooks and 
Saunders, who were partners in business, the former 

26 



of Old Lynn 

being a resident of Memphis, Tennessee, having the 
other half. 

The estate which Messrs. Masury, Brooks and 
Saunders bought in 1848 was substantially the same 
as that which Elkanah Hawkes had consolidated by 
various purchases from his relatives early in the 
eighteenth century. The only slice that had been 
subtracted was the fourteen acres which his son 
Thomas conveyed to Samuel Boardman, November 1, 
1780. This was in a sense not an alienation, for the 
wife of Samuel was a descendant of the original 
grantee of the whole tract. Mr. Sewall Boardman, 1 
who now lives in a house upon the Samuel Boardman 
purchase, is, through the maternal line, a lineal 
descendant of the soldier of King Philip's war, who, 
in addition to his title by possession, fortified himself 
by an Indian release. 

Mr. Saunders took the southern part of the estate, 
the street lines of which are well known by the 
massive wall laid in cement, that bids fair to rival 
in endurance the rude walls of the fathers, which 
have withstood the rigors of more than two hundred 
years. It is said that he who makes two blades of 
grass grow where one grew before is a public bene- 
factor. Mr. Saunders has devoted a fortune and 
forty years of intelligent human activity to the 
growth of a park and an avenue of magnificent ever- 
green trees that rival the matured beauty of an 
English estate. Once in a while Dame Rumor asserts 

1 Since deceased. 

27 



Hearths and Homes 

that the granite rocks which fringe this strath have 
yielded grains of gold, but the real golden metal 
found here these many years has been the transmu- 
tation of the elements of nature into a rich soil and 
fair climate fit for man's use and growth. 

West of Forest Street, on the northern boundary 
of the Saunders place, is a curious mound — an ele- 
vation which Nature does not account for. Mr. 
Saunders, 1 the present owner, once attempted to solve 
its mystery by digging into it, but the task proved 
too exacting, and the queer, oval-shaped mound 
still remains. It is probably an ancient burial 
place of the Indians, as this locality was one of their 
favorite hunting-grounds. It is within a rod or two 
of the babbling Crystal Brook, in the midst of a 
plain level — far from the haunts of man even to 
this day. 

Mr. Masury divided his portion into three parts. 
Upon a knoll west of Forest Street he built the 
modern house, now better known as the Phillips 
place, which was the house of an accomplished 
scholar and valued counselor, George W. Phillips, of 
the Suffolk Bar. Mr. Phillips took an active part in 
the social and religious life of Saugus. He was long 
a leading member of the Parish Committee of the 
Congregational Church. He died here, July 30, 1880. 
His widow presented to the town a painting of his 
brother Wendell, the silver-tongued orator. By the 

1 Mr. Saunders, at an advanced age, retired to Maiden after dis- 
posing of the place to Mr. Frank P. Bennett, who also acquired 
the Phillips estate. 

28 



of Old Lynn 

way, that picture looks lonesome on the otherwise 
bare, white walls of the Saugus Town Hall. 

Beyond the Phillips house is a slight elevation, 
covered by a growth of native wood, where the oaks, 
ashes, maples, birches, and all other trees indigenous 
to the climate grow in absolute freedom, and where 
robin red-breast heralds the coming of Spring as 
surely as the provident squirrel, running along yon- 
der gray wall, intent upon his store of nuts, presages 
the advent of Winter. 

At the northern end of this little gently-swelling 
knoll a shaded lane turns to the west, a rustic bridge 
spans the brook, and a smooth ascent of a few rods 
brings the traveler to the center of interest and to 
the crest of Oaklandvale Plain, or the " plough plain " 
of Colonial days. 

Here stands the venerable mansion built by El- 
kanah Hawkes in 1743. In the farming days its 
windows commanded a sweep of the whole domain. 
To-day, stately trees cut off the view and give per- 
fect seclusion to the occupants. The solid oak 
summer-beam of this house, cut upon the hill near 
by, was elaborately carved. The improvers of the 
house, however, have concealed it by plastering 
below it. The same iconoclasts removed from 
the front door a massive iron latch surmounted 
by an arch, which bore the inscription, " Com- 
pleted Nov. 17, 1743." This latch was the handiwork 
of the builder of the house, who was a keen sports- 
man and cunning artificer in iron. His grandson, 
Thomas Hawkes, of Boston, secured the relic of his 

29 



Hearths and Homes 

ancestor's skill, and it may yet be among his family 
heirlooms. 

In the light of all history, 1743 is not long ago. 
Several important things were going on in the world 
while this secluded country house was being built. 
Richardson, the father of the modern novel, was 
writing " Clarissa." His friend Hogarth was making 
his terrible, realistic pictures for all time, and the 
third friend, the literary colossus of the English 
tongue, Doctor Sam Johnson, was arrested for debt. 
Mr. William Pepperell, of Newburyport, was selling 
fish, unconscious of the destiny that awaited him - 
conqueror of Louisburg, Sir Willian Pepperell, first 
Baronet of Britain born on American soil. Charles 
Edward, the Young Pretender, was plotting the inva- 
sion of England, which two years later culminated in 
the last grand dash of Scottish chivalry and the final 
crushing of the Stuart cause. Great and little events 
transpire side by side, and after a few years the 
actors in each lie upon one plane, so far as things 
earthly are concerned. One figure is emblazoned on 
the page of history as the central point of a dis- 
credited cause, the other leaves the memory of a worthy 
husbandman, who simply did his part in the planting 
of the wilderness. To some the latter is fully as 
deserving of a place in our hearts as the former. 

Elkanah was the second son of Dr. Thomas Hawkes. 
His mother was Sarah Haven. His father, Dr. 
Thomas, was the son of John, called, in the old 
records, John Senior, who was the son of the pro- 
genitor of the Hawkes family in America. Jonathan 

30 




> 

W 
H 



O 



< 

2 



of Old Lynn 

Hawkes, the first clerk of the third parish under the 
charter, was the elder brother of Elkanah. On May 
14, 1742, Elkanah was married to Eunice Newhall by 
Rev. Edward Cheever, the first minister of the then 
newly organized Saugus Church, which was the third 
parish of Lynn. 

The wild territory alternating between craggy 
ledges and sunny dells, where golden-rod and asters 
bloom unseen of men, east of Forest Street, and 
north of Main Street, extending across the Newbury- 
port turnpike to the banks of Pranker's Pond, was, 
till within the memory of people now living, known 
as "Mr. Taylor's farm." The name was a vestige 
and reminder of the first manufacturing industry of 
the town. James Taylor was the last proprietor of 
the Iron Works, and these rough, yet beautiful, lands 
were an annex of the once flourishing enterprise, 
which boasted many acres of the " Iron Mill lands." 
The old conveyances all call Forest Street " the way 
by Mr. Taylor's farm," while Main Street is "the 
road from Lynn to Reading." The northern line will 
be forever designated as the common lands, locally 
known as " the six hundred acres " — the undisputed 
hunting ground of sportsmen and naturalists. 1 

The uses of an old house vary from generation to 



1 It must be borne in mind that this was written before this sec- 
tion of the common lands of prosaic Lynn was touched by magic 
hands, and the visions of the Arabian Nights of the far East were 
made realities, and the ring and the lamp of our Modern Aladdins 
created marvels of sparkling ponds, high up on the craggy hills of 
" the six hundred acres." 

31 



Hearths and Homes 

generation, according to the moods or tastes of the 
tenants for the time being. From the time of its 
erection, in 1743, till 1848, this Elkanah Hawkes 
house was the hub around which revolved the indus- 
tries of a New England farm. From 1848 down to 
1899 it was a home about which many ornamental 
(imported and native) trees grew into park and wood- 
land. Since 1899 the park and woodland have been 
removed, and the farming interest has again taken 
possession of the old mansion. 

As a matter of interest to a few at least, two views 
of the house are given — one during its rest period, 
the other since it has resumed its bucolic environment. 

The incident of taking the first picture is related 
by the artist in a letter to the writer : - 

" In driving on the afternoon of July 9, 1891, from 
my seaside home, it was my good fortune to pass an 
avenue of beautiful pines ; attracted by their quiet 
loveliness, and curious to penetrate still further into 
the forest depths, to which I imagined they would 
lead me, I turned my horse and entered their refresh- 
ing shadows. 

" While photographing the brook I was accosted by 
an elderly gentleman, 1 who told me the path led but to 
his house, and asked me if I would photograph the same. 

" To the photographs you are entirely welcome. I 
well know the pleasure they will afford you." 

The later view was taken after the patriarchal 
trees had been sacrificed, at the demand of the 
market gardener, for sun and light. 



1 Mr. E. Warner Bostwick, its late owner, since deceased. 

32 



A HOMESTEAD BY GRACE OF THE INDIANS. 



SiN THE thirteenth of November, 1675 by 
U order of the General Court, fifteen men were 
drawn from Lynn for service in the cele- 
brated King Philip's War, in addition to those 
previously detached. Among these was Daniel 
Hitchmgs. This is the first time his name appears 
m the printed Annals of Lynn. That he lived 
through the struggle and came home a thrifty 
planter, as cunning as the wily savages he had 
fought, is manifest by the fact that before the town 
had secured a release of the Indian titles it is 
recorded that on the twenty-eighth of July' 1686 
"James Quanapohit and David Kunkshamooshaw' 
descendants of Nanapashemet, sold a lot of land on 
the west side of the Iron Works pond to Daniel 
Hitchmgs." The Indians, who gave this deed, were 
the last of the race of the Sagamores, who had ruled 
over the land before the pale-face came. They had 
retreated before the invasion as far inland as Mistick 
and Chelmsford. They still had a shadowy claim 
upon the soil. Their pedigrees and their autographs 
may be seen in the elaborate account in the History 
ol Lynn. Sir Edmund Andros came over as the 
Koyal Governor in the year these deeds were given 
and it is not strange that when he saw these signa- 



Hearths and Homes 

tures he said they reminded him of the scratches 
of a bear's claw. Later in the same year, the au- 
thorities of Lynn secured from these same Indians 
a sort of blanket release of all the lands of Lynn and 
Reading. 

The present sketch does not reach to generals, but 
only has to do with the land of Daniel Hitchings. 
He was nearer the Indians than most of his neigh- 
bors in Lynn, and consequently more anxious to be 
at peace with the redskins than they. It is to be 
borne in mind that in the time of the Iron Works 
the dam was several feet higher than it is at present. 
The late Lott Edmands, who was an authority upon 
the subject, used to say that in those days the water 
must have flowed as high as the sill of his, then, 
residence. This would have carried the water up 
the valley of Crystal Brook for perhaps a quarter of 
a mile. The boundaries and descriptions of those 
days were ofttime vague, but this one admits of no 
doubt. East of the " Iron Works pond " was an un- 
broken wilderness, untouched to-day. North of it 
was the domain of Adam Hawkes, or of his son John. 
At the west was an arable tract of land, which, from 
generation to generation — through the ups and 
downs of life — we find in the possession of the suc- 
cessors of Daniel Hutchins, or Hitchins, or Hitchings. 

In this Indian deed it is called the Plough Plain, 
and it embraced all that sweep of intervale from the 
Saugus River, where the Newburyport turnpike now 
bounds it on the east, through to the present Melrose. 
The deed may be seen in the Essex Registry of Deeds : 

34 



of Old Lynn 



7. L. 88. 



JAMES RUMNEY MARSH, &c, TO HUTCHINS. 
Octobr. 9, 1686. 

To all christian people to whom this present deed of sale sliall 
covie, James Rumney Marsh of Natick and David Son & Right heir 
of Sagamore Sam, an Indian belonging to Wamesick, in New Eng- 
land Send Greeting, Know ye that ye said James Rumney Marsh 
and David Indians, for a valuable consideration to them in hand att 
& before ye ensealing and delivery of these presents by Daniel 
Hutchins of Linn in New England aforesaid well & truly paid, ye 
receipt whereof they do hereby acknowledge and themselves there- 
with fully satisfied and contented and thereof & of every part 
thereof do acquit, exonerate and discharge ye said Daniel Hutchin 
Senr. his hiers, executors, administrators and assignes forever by 
these presents, have given granted bargained sold aliened enfeoffed 
and confirmed and by these psents, Do fully freely clearly & 
absolutely give grant bargain sell alien, enfeoff and confirm unto 
him ye said Daniel Hutchin Senr. his hiers and assignes forever all 
that their tract or parcell of land, lying & being partly within ye 
township of Linn and partly within ye Township of Boston being 
butted and bounded on west westerly by ye land of ye late Capt. 
Thomas Brattle deceased north with ye Hills bounding yt. part 
Commonly caled & knowne by ye name of ye Plough plain running 
up to a marked tree att ye corner on ye north or northeast side and 
by ye high ledg of rocks whereon severall pitch pine trees do stand 
& from thence to Sawgust River formerly caled Iron Works pond 
and on ye easterly end by ye land now in ye tenure and occupation 
of Samuel Aplton and so ranging from Sawgust River to a tree 
marked with ye letter L. and from thence bounded by said Samuel 
Appltons land according as ye old fence runns to ye logg bridge & 
by ye land of John White from ye said Logg bridge to ye land of 
said Brattle or howsoever the same be butted & bounded or reputed 
to be bounded together with all rights, profits, privileges, commod- 
ityes, hereditaments & appurtenances whatsoever to ye same 
belonging or in wayes appertaining. To have & to hold ye said 
tract or parcell of land with all other ye above-granted premises, 



Hearths and Homes 

being butted and bounded as aforesaid unto ye said Daniel Hutchin 
his hiers executors admins. . . . and assignes and to ye only 
proper use benefit and behoof of ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers 
and assignes forever and ye said James Rumney Marsh and David, 
Indians do hereby covenant promis and grant to & with ye said 
Daniel Hutchin his hiers and assignes yt they have in themselves 
full power, good right & lawfull authority to grant, sell, convey 
and assure ye same unto ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers and 
assignes as a full firm perfect & absolute estate of inheritance in 
fee-simple without any manner of condicon, reversion or limitation 
on whatsoever so as to alter change, defeat or make void ye same 
and that ye said Daniel Hutchin his hiers and assignes shall & may 
by force & virtue of these presents from time to time and att all 
times forever hereafter lawfully peaceably & quietly have hold use 
occupie possess & enjoy ye same and every part thereof free and 
clear and clearly discharged of and from all & all manner of 
former and other gifts, grants bargains sales leases mortgages 
joyntures Dowres judgments executions entails forfietures and of 
and from all other titles troubles charges & encumbrances what- 
soever had made committed done or suffered to be done by you ye 
said James Rumney Marsh & David Indians or either of them thier 
or either of thier hiers or assigns att any time or times befor ye 
ensealing hereof and further yt ye said James Rumney Marsh & 
David Indians thier hiers & assignes shall & will from time to time 
and att all times forever hereafter warrant and defend ye above 
granted pemises with their appurtenances & every part thereof 
unto ye said Daniell Hutchin his hiers and assignes against all & 
every person and psons whatsoever any wayes lawfully claiming or 
demanding ye same or any part thereof in wittness whereof ye said 
James Rumney Marsh & David Indians have hereunto set thier 
hands and sealls the twenty eights day of July anno. Dom. one 
thousand six hundred eighty and six Annoq. Jacobi Secundi, 
Anglice &c, Secundo. 

Signed, sealed & delivered \ James iam ^ s Rumney Marsh & Seall 
in ye presence of us, f marke 

\ his 

John Hayward Not. Pub. — ( David 9 Indian & Seall 

Zachariah Shute Servt. J James R urrm ey Marsh alias Quan- 
upcowit and David Kunkskawmusliat acknowledged the within 

36 



of Old Lynn 

written instr. to be thier act & deed, Daniel Hutchin being also 
present averred that he was in ye actuall possession of the within 
mentioned parcell of land July 28th, 1686. 

P me Peter Bulkeley one of his Majesties Councill. 



Essex Registry Deeds, So. Dist. ") 
Salem, Oct. 25, 1888. \ 

The foregoing is a true copy of record in this office. 

Attest, CHAS. S. OSGOOD, Reg. 



Where naturally would have been planted the 
home buildings of such an estate stand to-day ven- 
erable farm buildings. The dwelling house upon 
the " plough plain " must have stood just where is 
the house now owned and occupied by Elizabeth 
and Hannah Hawkes, whose grandmother was Sarah 
(Hitchings) Hawkes, the daughter of Daniel Hitchings. 

This Daniel Hitchings, who, during the Revolu- 
tionary War lived in the house next east of this one, 
since known as the Lott Edmands place, was the 
descendant of the first Daniel Hitchings ; so that 
this old house is still in the possession of the lineal 
descendants of the white settler who first took it - 
Englishman like — by squatter sovereignty, and then 
quieted title by buying off the poor Indian. Only a 
fragment of the original grant attaches to the house 
under consideration. The boundaries of the thirty 
acres about this place are the same they were many 
more than a hundred years ago. The outlying wood 
lots, and salt marsh, too, have followed the ownership 

37 



Hearths and Homes 

of the house — the characteristic stone wall of the 
fathers still marks it from the common lands on the 
north, and the town way runs around it south and 
east, and the only names mentioned in the deeds as 
abutters on the west in this period are the two 
successive owners, Elkanah and Nathan Hawkes. 

This house has the antique cased beams of oak, 
showing in the ceiling of the lower rooms, and brac- 
ing the upper floors. There was a time when it was 
the ambition of the writer to grow tall enough to 
grasp these beams. Now when he enters the low, 
sunny rooms he takes his hat off lest it hit the beam. 
It still retains the peculiar, long, sloping back roof, 
once so common, which is the only roof ever devised 
to get the best of Boreas in these northern climes. 
The writer has been informed by the press that 
there has been a revival of the andiron and beaufet 
period. He is aware of a bastard imitation of the 
old. He is cognizant of the craze to frequent auction 
rooms, where old clocks made to order, at a week's 
notice, are to be had. He is familiar with the fashion 
of placing the chimney on the outside of the house, 
in imitation of negro quarters in the South, and call- 
ing it a Queen Anne cottage, but all sensible persons 
know that the fathers were wise when they put their 
chimneys in the centre of the house in this bleak 
climate. Under these sloping roofs, opening from 
the second story, lighted by little windows on the 
east and west, is a queer recess, accessible only to 
the high priestess of the household. It is triangular, 
in mathematical parlance. The floor is the base, the 

38 



of Old Lynn 

partition of the rooms in front is the perpendicular, 
and the roof is the hypothenuse. The garret is free 
to favored children, but this inner temple contains 
sacred emblems, which only the most exalted degrees 
entitle one to look upon. Can these things be dupli- 
cated in the house built to-day by contract ? No. In 
spite of the profane sneer, there is some sentiment 
in most men stronger than even the glitter of gold 
in their eyes. 

There was no lapse in the Hitchings name and 
occupation till May 6, 1765, when Joseph Hitchings 
conveyed to young Adam Hawkes, then just of age 
and married to Hannah Newhall. Adam was the 
son of John and the grandson of Moses. When 
Adam took possession, besides the house now stand- 
ing, there was an old house upon the premises which 
has since disappeared. Adam 1 died while still a 
young man. His kinsman, Thomas Hawkes, admin- 
istered upon the estate, and after its sale his widow 
and children removed to Boston. Among his descend- 
ants of the present time is Adam Augustus Hawkes, 
of Wakefield, a frequent visitor at the old place. 
Joseph Hitchings, the grantor, was the son of 
Elkanah, who was the son of Daniel. 

In 1785, the buildings upon this place were iden- 

1 This Adam Hawkes was in Captain David Parker's Company 
at the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775. The pathetic story of 
this patriot of the Revolution, who left a widow and a family of 
small children, is briefly related in a family record made before 
1800, and is as follows : — 

' ' Adam Hawkes entered on board the privateer ' Graybow ' 
under command of Captain Hammon (probably Capt. Edward 

39 



Hearths and Homes 

tical in form and fact as they are seen to-day. 
Fortunately, the frenzy for modernizing, or so-called 
improving, has not affected the various tenants. The 
books teach the law of holding lands in fee simple, 
but no individual has yet been able to secure more 
than a life tenancy in any real estate, save his little 
plot in the churchyard. 

June 5, 1785, Thomas Hawkes, administrator of 
the estate of Adam Hawkes, conveyed the estate to 
Samuel Sweitser, Jr. This was not an alienation, for 
the wife of Samuel was Lydia, daughter of John 
Hawkes. Samuel kept the place till March 26, 1807, 
when, having in the meanwhile adopted the present 
spelling of the name Sweetser, he gave it back to 
the original owner's name in the person of Daniel 
Hitchings. It happened in this case that the 
grantee's wife was Eunice, the daughter of Elkanah 
Hawkes. The next change passed it into the pos- 
session of Ebenezer Hawkes, whose wife was the 
daughter of Daniel Hitchings. Then came Cornelius 
C. Felton and Caroline Plummer, of Salem, and 
James Draper. 

The Draper family owned and occupied this house 
from 1827 till its conveyance to Nathan Hawkes in 
1848. Here lived and died Deacon Ira Draper, an 

Hammond, who was sent back to Boston Oct. 8, 1778, to be ex- 
changed for British prisoners, Vol. VII, p. 182, Muster Rolls) 
May 9, 1778, and was taken by the enemy and carried to Halifax 
to prison, where he remained till the last of Sept., when he was 
exchanged and on the 16th of October he arrived at Boston and 
got home on Friday the 19th of Oct. , sick with the yellow fever, 
which continued till the 20th and then he dyed. " 

40 



of Old Lynn 

ingenious mechanic, from whom his sons Eben and 
George inherited the inventive talent that created 
the lively town of Hopedale. 

Forty years ago, Nathan Hawkes, son of Nathan 
Hawkes of the Third Parish, retired to this little 
farm to spend the declining years of a serene old 
age. Here he died in 1862 at the age of eighty-seven 
years. His boy companion in many delightful rural 
drives through the by-ways of the border-land of 
Essex and Middlesex unconsciously absorbed the 
impressions that seek expression in these papers. 

Dr. Edward A. Kittredge, the eccentric physician 
and humorous writer, who ought to be remembered 
as " Noggs," lived for a time in a cottage under the 
pines west of this place. In a lecture at Wakefield 
he said that it was a truism that there were excep- 
tions to all general laws, but that the only exception 
to the rule that water would not run up hill had been 
illustrated by his neighbor, Nathan Hawkes. In one 
of his experiments for draining his low lands he had 
turned the water, so that it apparently ran up hill. 
The doctor and the veteran guider of the rill of 
water died many years since, but the water still runs 
in the channel cut for it, and, if the doctor was right, 
it still runs up hill. It yet travels the same way, for 
the boy who saw the channel dug has watched it 
every season since — when the buds were swelling, 
when the snow was blowing, when the crows were 
feasting upon the young corn, and when the pump- 
kins were ripening in the autumn sun. 

The northern line abuts upon the common woods - 

41 



Hearths and Homes 

The Six Hundred Acres. Through its centre from 
Oaklandvale and Melrose flows the calm and even- 
tempered Crystal Brook, till within sight of the house 
on the east, beyond the turnpike, it joins the Saugus, 
under the shadow of a hillside colored with foliage 
that no painter dare imitate. The road to this place, 
zigzagging in a generally northern course from the 
Oaklandvale schoolhouse, is arched by the interlacing 
tree-tops, and is styled in the ancient records, " the 
way by Mr. Taylor's farm." Since it ceased to be a 
town-way of Lynn, to become one in Saugus, it has 
been left to work out its own salvation, which is the 
usual course in a country town when its road survey- 
ors or commissioners do not chance to live in the 
vicinity. It must be remembered that town officials 
are apt to slight such matters, because they are not 
taught nor paid for aesthetics. 

The way by the house to the north looks like a no- 
thoroughfare. Many a traveler as he scans the dis- 
used road repents and turns about, yet there is an 
old road that leads out by Howlett's mill, a mile 
beyond. It is a picturesque scene that meets the eye 
of the bold stroller who ventures up this region, 
which may be haunted by the shade of "old Bill 
Edmands." There are rocks and rills well worth see- 
ing. There are abandoned apple orchards, vainly 
struggling with native trees for possession. Not a 
vestige of the buildings where the pugnacious Mr. 
Edmands lived can be seen. The cellar where he 
stored his potatoes and horsed his barrels of cider, 
the New England farmer's beverage, can scarcely be 

42 



of Old Lynn 

distinguished from a last year's woodchuck's hole. 
There is a grim record on the books of the town of 
Saugus relative to this road. It was not meant as 
satire, but it sounds like it. Mr. Edmands had a 
petition before the town meeting for some improve- 
ment. The clerk gravely records that the vote was 
against the prayer, "William Edmands only voting- 
yes." Like his brother Lott, William loved a lawsuit 
better than his dinner. He won and lost, and at the 
end was like Esop's litigant — he had the shell of the 
oyster only. But this is a digression, simply intro- 
duced to show the wayfarer that he is not obliged 
to turn around and retrace his steps when he reaches 
this vale of serenity — this restful abode bounded by 
mossy walls of past ages. 



AN ANCIENT HOUSE IN NORTH SAUGUS. 




"O home, so desolate and lorn! 

Did all thy memories die with thee? 
Were any wed, were any born, 
Beneath this low roof -tree ? " 

]LD houses and old homesteads have always 
had a fascination for a certain intelligent 
class in every community. The attraction is 
not due to the elegance of the place, nor to the great- 
ness or wealth of the founder. With our English- 
descended race it is an ingrained reverence for our 
fathers and a continuing hunger to know something 
of our kin. The individual man passes on, but often 
leaves behind him some material objects which seem 
to defy time and endure for after generations, some 
members of which are intuitively made to feel the 
touch of the prior user, or builder, or enjoyer. 

For example, the writer has an old oaken arm-chair 
which has been in daily use for at least five genera- 
tions. It is one of his most valued possessions, not 
on account of its having any money value, but simply 
because it brings him very near to a man who sat in 
it to a good, old age. This man died more than sixty 
years ago. His chair is more than a hundred years 
old, and his house is much older. His sword — for 
his Revolutionary title, as appears by the parish rec- 

45 



Hearths and Homes 



ords, was Lieutenant — happily unstained by blood, 
is in the same room, and is now only a terror to 
children and old people. 

Having been frequently asked if there were any 
ancient houses in the old Lynn which is now Saugus, 
the writer presumes to recall this one, partly because 
of his connection with it, and also by virtue of the 

fact that the water sys- 
tem of Lynn bids fair to 
largely change the old 
landmarks of our rural 
retreat. One mile south- 
east, as the bee flies, 
from the Tarbell place, 
over the line into Sau- 
gus by way of an an- 
cient native American 
trail, almost under the 
shadow of Indian Rock, 
which was a guide and 
trysting-place for the 
red man, stands a vener- 
able house. It closely 
hugs the earth, as though 
its builder foresaw the centuries during which bitter 
winds and pitiless storms would blow over it, and so 
rooted it down to the soil. As if to still further 
anchor it to the spot, it had a great chimney, which, 
when removed forty years ago, gave space for a fair- 
sized sleeping-room. 
The house was built about 1725 by Moses Hawkes, 

46 




INDIAN ROCK. 



of Old Lynn 

son of Moses, to whom the land came under the will 
of the first settler. In 1708, the first Moses, a young 
man with a family of minor children, found it 
expedient to call upon his neighbor, the celebrated 
speaker, John Burrill, to write his will. He gave 
one-half of his farm to his eldest son Moses, with the 
option of taking either the home part or what was 
called the Neck, and then he died. When the son 
Moses reached his majority, in 1725, he put on record 
in the Registry of Deeds, at Salem, his election to 
take the Neck, and commended his " Honored Mother, 
Margaret " (Cogswell) and his " Honored uncle Eben- 
ezer," the executors of his father's will, for their 
management of the estate during his minority. Then 
he married Susannah Hitchings, kinswoman of Daniel 
Townsend, who was immortalized by heroic death in 
the next generation at Lexington. 

The house stands on the north side of the road 
from North Saugus to Wakefield, a few rods west of 
the schoolhouse, which is upon land taken from the 
farm. Of course it faces due south. No true Yankee 
farmer ever violated this rule of common sense. The 
custom was to select the most eligible spot on the 
farm, with the tillage and grazing land in front — let 
the roads conform to the house, not the other way. 

To Moses and his wife, Susannah, was born a large 
family. Moses was active in forming the Third or 
West Parish (Saugus). Upon his son Nathan, born 
in this house in 1745, fell his mantle in church and 
civil affairs. 

Nathan was united in marriage with Sarah Hitch- 

47 



Hearths and Homes 

ings, September 3, 1769, by the noted Parson Roby. 
He was parish clerk during a period of Mr. Roby's 
pastorate. The friendship of pastor and clerk was 
very close. The son of one married the granddaugh- 
ter of the other. In death they were not separated, 
as their graves are side by side in the old Saugus 
church-yard. This man who was born, who lived and 
died, in the same house, has the distinction of being 
the last, if not the only, selectman that Saugus fur- 
nished Lynn before the separation. He was one of 
the Board in 1805, 1806, 1807. During his service 
the final divorcement of town and church took place 
in Lynn. The contention between the first church 
and town was solved by the town meeting, being held 
in 1806 in the Methodist Church. In 1811, James 
Gardiner and Nathan Hawkes were a committee of 
the town to build the road so long known as the 
Downing Road. It was so named because the con- 
tractor, whom the committee employed, was Caleb 
Downing. 

Recently the fields back of the house have been 
disfigured by the abortive ditch to Howlett's Pond, 
which the future will style " Lynn's water folly." To 
the east, the natural union of the Hawkes and Penny 
Brooks has been stimulated by the same municipal 
authority. On the south, beyond the green meadows 
and beyond the plain at the point of the Neck, the 
two brooks mingle with the waters of Saugus River 
and swell the power that works the looms below. 
In the little square house, with the four-sided roof 
meeting at a point, east of the brook and south of 

48 



of Old Lynn 

the present schoolhouse, the Rev. Edward T. Taylor, 
afterwards founder of the Seamen's Bethel in Boston, 
first shouted Methodism. In this house he received 
the rudiments of education, and under its roof he 
was entertained during his itinerancy. 

Before the building of the first schoolhouse, the 
first detached school of the Third Parish was estab- 
lished in an apartment of this house. In David N. 
Johnson's "Sketches of Lynn" is found the first 
school report made to the Town of Lynn. The out- 
lying districts were Nahant, North Saugus, and 
Swampscott, thus mentioned : " Your committee also 
visited Nahant ; found nine present. Also the school 
at Nathan Hawkes' ; present twelve. Also John 
Phillips ; number fifteen subjects. All the schools 
visited were in good order." This school report is 
dated April 14, 1812. 

Although Nathan continued his interest in school 
matters through life, his crowning and important 
achievement was the establishment by the Legisla- 
ture of the Town of Saugus. He was the principal 
petitioner for this act, and for the contest, his ripe 
experience in town affairs, and the recognition by 
the people of both parts of the town of his ability 
and fairness, amply qualified him to win the Legis- 
lative battle which added Saugus to the list of 
Massachusetts towns in 1815. 

Allusion has been made to a way of the by-gone 
days, which few living now recall, though easily 
tracked. The two houses are connected by an inci- 
dent which the young, at least, can appreciate. The 

49 



Hearths and Homes 

red men silently trod this trail in what savants call 
the " Stone Age," traces of which are found on all 
the brooksides in this region. In youth, the writer 
wondered who had enjoyed these secluded paths since 
that time. He now knows that one man, who was 
born a subject of King George, in 1775, and lived on 
to the midst of our War of the Rebellion, in 1862, 
enjoyed the tramp through these solitudes, by way 
of Indian Rock, from North Saugus to Lynn field. 
He hunted different game, however, in the glen. 
His hunt was crowned with success. He did not live 
in the Stone Age, for the Lynnfield Parish records 
relate the marriage by good Parson Joseph Mottey, 
of Nathan Hawkes, son of Nathan of the West 
Parish, to Elizabeth Tarbell, January 22, 1805. 

This place illustrates the difference our flexible 
land laws make between us and our old home. The 
first white man in North Saugus was Adam Hawkes. 
Like a true Englishman, he loved the soil he tilled. 
He brought with him English notions of primogeni- 
ture. When he began to set his house in order for 
the great change, he attempted to provide for his 
eldest grandchild by a clause of his will, which is 
copied in the spelling of 1671 : — 

" John Hawks is to deliver and sett out unto Moses 
Hawks, his sonn, which he had by rebeckah Hawks, 
daughter of Mr. Moses Mavericke and his heirs for 
ever one haulf of that fearme which the said Hawks 
lived and died upon, boath upland and medow and 
houseing being in Lyn, only for the houseing the 
said Hawks is to paye the value thereof if he please, 

50 



of Old Lynn 

all of which is to be don when the aforesaid Moses 
corns to twenty and one years of age and if it please 
god the said Moses dye before the age of one and 
twenty years, the said estate is to goe unto his father 
John Hawks, and his children forever, this aforesaid 
guift is the legacy of Mr. Adam Hawks to his grand- 
child Moses Hawks." 

The scheme was not a perfect success, for little 
more than two hundred years have elapsed and this 
old house and the close about it only remain to the 
kin of Moses, while the patrimony of his younger 
brethren is still held by their descendants in un- 
broken line. The cause is not hard to find. The 
boys to till the soil were too few, or they took to 
themselves wives and went their way. 

In earlier years the apple trees bloomed about this 
hospitable mansion. The garden was fragrant with 
the scent of old-time shrubs and flowers. Alas ! 
landlord absenteeism is as blighting in New England 
as in old Ireland, and the place is not as it was when 
some of its builders' kin occupied it. 



51 



NOTED NAMES UPON A REVOLUTIONARY 
COMMISSION. 



\ SEAL 



Colony of the 
2, Maflachufetts-Bay 



J. Bowdoin 
James Otis 
W. Spooner 
Caleb dishing 
J. Winthrop 
B. Chadbourn 
T. Gushing 
John Whetcomb 

James Prefcott 

Eldad Taylor 

J. Palmer 

S. Holten 

Moses Gill 

Michael Farley 

Jed'h Foster 



The Major Part of the COUNCIL 
of the Maffachufetts-Bay, in 
New-England, 

To Nathan Hawkes, Gentleman, Greeting. 

YOU being appointed first Lieutenant of the 
Second Company whereof John Pool is Cap- 

rn»**\-%S fil \ st Re 9 iment of Militia in the 
County oj Ejsex whereof Timothy Pickering Jr. 
Esq. is Colonel J 

By Virtue of the Power vefted in us, WE do by 
thefe Prefents, (repofing fpecial Truft and Con- 
Sw^^ 1 y° ur L°y alt y. Courage, and good Con- 
auct,) Lommiffion you accordingly. - You are 
therefore carefully and diligently to difcharge 
the Duty of a first Lieut, in leading, ordering 
and exercifing faid Company in Arms, both In- 
terior Officers and Soldiers ; and to keep them 
in good Order and Difcipline : - And they are 
hereby commanded to obey you as their first 
Lieut, and you are yourfelf, to obferve and fol- 
low iuch Orders and Inftructions as you fhall 
Irom Time to Time receive from the major part 
oj the Council or your superior Officers. 

GIVEN under our Hands and the Seal of the 
Jaid, Colony, at Watertown the Twenty Sixth 
Lay oj April xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx In the year of our Lord, One 
Thoufand Seven hundred and Seventy Six. 

By the Command of the \ 
Major Part of the Council l 

PEREZ MORTON 



D Secry. 



53 



Hearths and Homes 

The student of American History will pardon the 
introduction of a time-stained, yet well-preserved, 
document, which bears the autographs of a noted 
band of leaders of Massachusetts thought. 

The first on the list is James Bowdoin, member of 
the first Continental Congress and second Governor 
under the Constitution. The last, Jedediah Foster, 
was a Justice of the Superior Court of Judicature. 
Thomas Cushing was eight years Lieutenant-Governor 
under Hancock and Bowdoin, and, as Mr. Drake says, 
" friend and co-worker in the patriot cause with 
Adams, Otis and Warren." Moses Gill was six years 
Lieutenant and Acting Governor. He was also a 
member of the two Electoral Colleges, which elected 
George Washington President. 

John Winthrop and Caleb Cushing were the Rev- 
olutionary representatives of names pre-eminent in 
our early and late history. 

The modest name, S. Holten, stands for Dr. Samuel 
Holten, an Essex County man, a sketch of whose 
active and versatile life is given in Mr. White's 
charming history of Danvers. He is there described 
as, " all things considered, the most remarkable man 
the town has ever produced." Michael Farley, of 
Ipswich, was another Essex man. His native town 
gladly bestowed all its offices upon him, and he was 
also a member of the Provincial Congress, High 
Sheriff and Major-General of Militia. The historian 
of Ipswich says that "he excelled in State-craft." 

Every name of the fifteen was the signature of a 
patriot and man of mark. James Otis, however, 



I — 




_ — _ ,, 




« 3 






of Old Lynn 

towers above all as one of the most brilliant lumin- 
aries that any revolutionary epoch of the human 
race ever produced. He dedicated Faneuil Hall as 
the " Cradle of Liberty," and it was he " whose 
electric eloquence was like the ethereal flash that 
quenched its fire." 

These men were denounced by King George as 
traitors. His army of occupation drove them from 
Boston. They took the blank papers of the Royal 
Governor and went out to Watertown, where they 
set up a rebel government. They carefully erased 
all reference to " His Majesty, George the Third, by 
the Grace of God," etc., and then, upon forms which 
plainly show in the water-mark the Crown, the Brit- 
ish Arms and G. R., they boldly issued commissions 
to their fellow-subjects to make war upon the stuffy 
old king — to defend American liberties and to main- 
tain the priceless heritage of freedom, which their 
fathers had left home for, a hundred and fifty years 
before. 

This commission was one of those issued by " The 
Major Part of the Council," upon its own responsi- 
bility, before the General Court passed the Act of 
May 1, 1776, abolishing the regal style. This famous 
" Major Part of the Council " continued to be the 
Executive Authority in the Massachusetts Bay Colony 
till the adoption of the Constitution in 1780. 



55 




HAWKES POND FROM FULLER HILL. 



THE TARBELL PLACE. 




]|||T IS well to gather up and preserve bits of local 
history before they become dim traditions by 
oral transmission. There is an old homestead 
and farm in the southwestern corner of Lynnfield 
which deserves a passing glance from its associations. 

Upon its eastern boundary flows the placid Hawkes 
Brook ; * its southern line is on the border between 
Saugus and Lynnfield ; its western boundary is the 
Saugus River, which is also the line between two 
towns, Lynnfield and Wakefield, and between two 
counties, Middlesex and Essex ; its northern bound- 
ary was the farm of George L. Hawkes, which came 
to him through a long line of worthy ancestors. 

It is now absorbed in his great estate. The union 
of these two places, after a separation for several 
generations, returns the Tarbell homestead to the 
descendant of the first planter. When the estate of 
John Hawkes, son of Adam (the pioneer), was settled 
in 1695, eight score of acres, on the eastern bank of 
Saugus River, running up to the point where Daniel 
Eaton had established his mill on the stream in 
Lynnfield at the same privilege used by Adam 



1 This brook is now a part of Lynn's water system, under the 
name of Hawkes Pond. 

57 



Hearths and Homes 

Hawkes for his fulling mill in the opening years of 
this century, and later for an organ factory, a sash 
and blind factory and other purposes, were by John 
Hawkes and Thomas Hawkes and Francis Hutchin- 
son, guardian of Ebenezer Hawkes, set off to John, 
the young son of John Senior's deceased son Adam. 
From him have descended those of the Hawkes 
family who have since lived on the Wakefield and 
Lynnfield boundary. As he has no use for the 
buildings, it may be that ere another generation they 
will be no more. 1 Indeed, the barns and the connect- 
ing lean-to have already disappeared in smoke and 
fire. Few, save old natives, could find this place. 

The big, homely old house is in a secluded, yet 
sunny spot, far from the road. Back of it towers a 
great boulder by which timid strangers were afraid 
to drive. Wooded hills on the north and east keep 
off the chill east winds of our rugged climate. From 
its southern windows the eye looks upon as pretty an 
intervale, bordered by as sparkling a river and framed 
by as verdant hills, as old Essex can show. 

This for a century has been known as the Tarbell 
Place. Here after the Revolutionary War came 
Jonathan Tarbell from the South Parish of Danvers, 
now Peabody ; with him came his wife, Elizabeth 
(Cook) Tarbell. His father, Jonathan Tarbell, came 



1 Since this was written, George L. Hawkes died without issue, 
and the estate, except the inclosure containing the Tarbell Tomb, 
has passed into the ownership of strangers. Mr. Hawkes will be 
remembered for his bequests to the Wakefield Historical Society 
and to the Lynnfield Public Library. 

58 



^ 



of Old Lynn 

here and died in this house. Jonathan Tarbell, Sr., 
was the grandson of John Tarbell of Salem Village, 
whose name will be ever noted as the master spirit in 
the ecclesiastical contest with that arch-conspirator 
of the witchcraft delusion, Rev. Samuel Parris, which 
finally ejected Mr. Parris in disgrace from the county, 
and vindicated the Christian name of Mr. Tarbell's 
wife's mother, Rebecca Nurse, the victim of supersti- 
tion in 1692. After these two there likewise lived 
and died in this house and was buried in the family 
tomb, upon the estate, a third Jonathan Tarbell. Of 
what interest is it at this time when the name is 
extinct in this locality? 

This is the story in brief : On the nineteenth of 
April, 1775, some two hundred brave young men 
marched from the village green in the South Parish 
of Danvers to Lexington, twenty miles away. A 
tragedy there took place. Every schoolboy the world 
over feels his pulse beat more quickly as he reads the 
tale of the first blood shed in the war of American 
Independence. Seven Danvers men gave their lives, 
that liberty might live. 

The Lexington monument in Peabody, fittingly 
standing on the spot whence the start was made on 
the fateful morning, commemorates the names of the 
heroes who fell. The first on the list is " Samuel Cook, 
set. 33." By his side, when the British bullet struck 
his heart, stood his brother-in-law, Jonathan Tarbell. 
On the twentieth he tenderly carried his dead home 
to Danvers. Both were members of the company 
commanded by their relative, Capt. Samuel Epps. 



Hearths and Homes 

Service at Lexington was a patent of American 
nobility. These men of Danvers were the farthest 
from the scene of action of any who reached the 
battlefield. Let it be remembered that the fatalities 
of Danvers were larger than any other town, save 
only Lexington itself. The name Tarbell as a sur- 
name is lost in this locality. 

To be exact, the conveyance was from Joseph 
Jeffery and his wife Priscilla to the senior Jonathan 
Tarbell. The consideration was five hundred and 
thirty-three pounds, six shillings and eight pence. 
The acres numbered one hundred and sixty. The 
witnesses were Jonathan Tarbell, Jr., the militiaman, 
Nathaniel Peaslee Sargent, and Asa Newhall. The 
latter married the sister of the grantee, and his 
family has kept the name in prominence in state 
affairs to this day. The deed is dated April 12, 1775, 
a few days before the Lexington alarm, and was 
recorded April 21, 1775, a few days after the battle. 
The magistrate was Timothy Pickering, Jr. Save 
for the new road from North Saugus to the Andrew 
Mansfield place, not a line nor a wall has been 
changed from that day to this. The white oak tree 
mentioned in the incorporation of the district of 
Lynnfield, July 3, 1782, as follows, ''Beginning at 
Saugus River near a white oak tree in Jonathan 
Tarbell's lower field," may have gone with the family. 
Everything else remains unchanged. 

The excuse of the writer for this little sketch is 
the fact that, by one of his genealogical lines, he 
is descended from Jonathan Tarbell, the soldier of 
Lexington, and was born in the old house. 

GO 




Q 

O 
Oh 

H 



A QUAKER HOME ON THE DOWNING ROAD. 




iHEN an old house has been dormant for a 
generation or two and has awakened to the 
tread of young feet of the same race, is it 
well to depict the past for the use of the future? 
Why not ? Long holding seems to be evidence of 
something worth holding — something capable of 
enduring beyond one simple life. Be that as it may, 
there is an ancient mansion in North Saugus, the 
soil about which has never known a change from 
the direct line of family ownership since the first 
Englishman paddled his canoe up the Saugus River, 
and spied out the possibilities of husbandry. 

And there are three other houses within sight of 
the smoke of each other's chimneys of which the 
same tale can be told in this dear old Sleepy Hollow 
hamlet. The house, never imposing, but always re- 
spectable, is on the east side of Walnut Street, just 
before that street crosses the Newburyport Turnpike. 
It is within a stone's throw of the spot where the 
Puritan pioneer, Adam Hawkes, built his cabin in 
the wilderness. Between it and the road stood a line 
of sturdy buttonwood trees, and, clearer descrip- 
tion still, there is planted forever the " corn-barn 
rock," upon which, not many years since, the deserted 
corn-barn stood betwixt the trees and the house. 

(51 



Hearths and Homes 

Query ! How many people about here know what 
a corn-barn was ? The corn-barn set high on posts, 
with abundant ventilation, filled, heaped up with 
golden Indian corn ? How it delighted the thrifty 
farmers' eyes ! What suggestions of huskings and 
pudding and milk ! Even a look at it made the 
young blood tingle, and the memory almost brings 
up the vanished past. There are still living a few 
good souls who will smile and pleasantly recall this 
old house when we call it by its then designation, 
"the home of the Quaker old maids." 

It was a praiseworthy custom with Friends when 
a strange minister came to Lynn to spread, among 
the scattered members, notice of the arrival. Eben 
Stocker, 1 still living at an advanced age, as a boy 
lived with the Breed family at Breed's End. When 
the warning reached Breed's it was their duty to 
pass the word to the Hawkes family — the remote 
outpost of the Friends — at North Saugus. It was 
Eben's delight to be ordered to mount the old horse 
and post up the Downing Road. The ride was in 
itself pleasant, and at the end of it were interesting 
old ladies, berries, shagbark nuts and doughnuts. 
What more could youth and health ask for? The 
old ladies have gone to their reward, the berries 
have been crowded out by trees and cows. The 



1 Ebenezer Stocker died at Lynn, October 19, 1888, aged eighty- 
seven years and eight months. His father was an officer in the 
Revolutionary War from Lynn. The son is believed to have been 
the last survivor of the sons of Revolutionary soldiers resident in 
Lynn. 

62 



of Old Lynn 

rough exterior that hides the good heart of the 
shagbark draws boys yet, and here, still good for 
the future as in the past, is the old house. 

In his early days the writer was a frequent visitor, 
but our people in New England country towns have 
such a habit of using the side door that he did not 
know till a generation had gone that the house had 
the orthodox front door on the south. 

What a place that open attic, stored with trophies 
of the chase, with disused implements of olden in- 
dustries, such as spinning wheels, was for boys to 
sleep in ! What matter was it that two boys awoke 
one morning and found that through some crevice 
the fleecy snow had blown in upon their bed ? Life 
was young then, and they were all the warmer. 
And one of those boys was the most loyal and affec- 
tionate brother a boy ever had and lost. 

The very boards in the floor of the best room show 
the trees our virgin forests grew. There have not 
been sawed within this century boards so wide, so 
clear as these that have been trod by the feet of 
prattling children, of sturdy manhood, and of old 
age, as is the law of Nature, whereby children are 
born, reach maturity, decay, pass away, and then are 
re-created to travel over the same old course. Our 
race ought to improve if each generation saves some- 
thing from the one which goes before. 

This room boasted a rarity for a little country 
hamlet. It was the pride of a thrifty housekeeper's 
heart — a beaufet. It must have been jolly to have 
sat about the fireplace of a winter's evening and to 

63 



Hearths and Homes 

have watched the lights and shades play through the 
room and among the shining treasures displayed on 
the beaufet. 

The demands of modern luxury and labor-saving 
civilization have hidden our fires in the walls, have 
banished the reverie-provoking back-log, the bright 
andirons, and buried the china and silver Penates 
behind dark and locked doors. Is there not in all 
this some loss, some sacrifice, of the old Saxon idea 
of home? 

In this home was born a child, who in manhood be- 
came an active agent in the separation of Lynn and 
Saugus. Ahijah Hawkes was chairman of the Board 
of Selectmen of Saugus for the first three years of its 
corporate existence, from 1815 to 1818. His colleagues 
were Jonathan Makepeace and Richard Mansfield. 

And this house saw the last of the mild black 
slavery that lingered in Massachusetts till the adop- 
tion of the Constitution, in 1780, before which time 
the boon of freedom came to Ebenezer Hawkes' 
Phebe by purchase from her master by her husband, 
Hannibal, 1 the sexton of the Old Tunnel Meeting 



1 The cut pictures a familiar scene in the Old Tunnel Meeting on 
the Common. The bell-ringer, the faithful sexton, who exercised 
his modest functions for so many years, is Hannibal, of whom 
Alonzo Lewis, the historian of Lynn, writes :— 

" Hannibal, a slave of John Lewis, was an example of the good 
effects which education and good treatment may produce in the 
colored people. He was brought from Africa when a boy, and was 
treated rather as a servant than a slave. He married Phebe, a 
slave of Ebenezer Hawkes. By the indulgence of his master, and 
by working extra hours, he earned enough to purchase the freedom 

64 



of Old Lynn 

House. The house was built by Ebenezer Hawkes 
in 1765, on land which he purchased of his father, 
Samuel Hawkes, and erected coincident with a cere- 



i - * 
i y 



mi 







s I 




i 



of three children at forty dollars each ; but Phebe being a faithful 
slave, her master would not part with her short of forty pounds, 
yet, with a motive of hope before him, Hannibal was not to be 
discouraged, and in a few years her purchase was accomplished, 

65 



Hearths and Homes 

mony, the record of which is copied from the original 
in the manner and spelling of the Colonial days : — 

"Whereas Ebenezer Hawkes, of Lynn in the 
county of Essex, in the province of the Massachu- 
setts Bay, in New England, Black Smith, Son of 
Samuel Hawkes, of Lynn, aforesaid, AND Rebecca 
Alley, Daughter of Samuel Alley, of said Lynn, 
House Right, HAVING Declared their Intentions of 
taking each other in marriage before several public 
meetings of the people called Quakers at Lynn and 
Salem according to the Good Order used among them, 
whose proceedings therein after deliberate considera- 
tion thereof with regard unto the Righteous Law of 
God and Example of his people Recorded in the 
Scriptures of truth in that case and having consent 
of parents and others concerned they appearing clear 
of all others were approved by said meetings NOW 
these are to certifie, all whome it may concern, that 
for the full accomplishing of their said Intentions 
this Seventeenth Day of the Fourth Month, called 



and his own freedom was given to him. He married in 1762, and 
had three sons and six daughters. I have seldom known a more 
worthy family." 

Judge James R. Newhall in "Lynn: Her First 250 Years," 
wrote : — 

"Nearly opposite the Carnes house was the habitation of the 
negro Hannibal, who, though once an untutored slave, rose to be 
highly regarded for manliness of character and useful industry. 
He was brought from Africa while a small boy, and became the 
property of John Lewis, who owned the Carnes house. Hannibal's 
master generously gave him his freedom, and the town gave him 
the little lot on which his modest habitation was placed. He was 
sexton of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House for many years, and ever 
prompt in warning the people of their Sunday and lecture-day 
duties. And, as he tolled the bell for the funerals of departed 

66 



of Old Lynn 

April, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven 
hundred sixty-five, the said Ebenezer Hawkes and 
Rebecca Alley appeared in a public assembly of the 
afore-Said people and others met together in their 
public meeting place, in Lynn, and in a solemn man- 
ner, he the said Ebenezer Hawkes, taking the said 
Rebecca Alley by the hand, Did openly declare that 
he took her to be his wife, promising through the 
Lord's assistance to be unto her a loving and faith- 
full Husband untill Death should them separate AND 
Then AND There in the said assembly, the said 
Rebecca Alley, did in like manner declare that she 
took the said Ebenezer Hawkes to be her husband, 
in like manner promising to be unto him a faithful 
and loving wife till death should separate them And 
MOREOVER, the said Ebenezer Hawkes and Rebecca 
Alley, she according to the custom of marriage as- 
suming the name of her husband as a further con- 
firmation thereof, Did then and there to these 
presents set their hands, and we whose names are 
hereunto Subscribed being present among others at 



neighbors, by his solemn countenance and measured movements 
showed his tender sympathy. In after days, with his wife Phebe, 
who had been a slave to Ebenezer Hawkes, but whom he had 
redeemed by forty hard-earned pounds, he retired to the northern 
side of Walnut Street, nearly opposite the head of Robinson, and 
there lived, encircled by a large and affectionate family, till the 
services of another were required to toll the bell for him. Phebe 
collected herbs and distilled rose and mint waters. And the ladies 
of the parish used occasionally, of a pleasant afternoon, to visit 
her, and take a cup of tea. A worthy son succeeded to the little 
estate, and the humble traffic still went on. Your informant well 
remembers having gone there, when a little lad, with the basket of 
wild rose leaves, gathered from the roadside, seeing them deposited 
in the huge iron pot with its long tin nozzle, and returning after a 
few days for the promised bottle of rose-water. " 

67 



Hearths and Homes 

the solemnizing of their said marriage and subscrip- 
tion in manner aforesaid as WITNESSES hereunto 
have subscribed our names the Day and Year above 
WRITTEN 

Nathan Breed Ebenezer Hawkes 

John Basset Rebeckah Hawkes 

Ruth Estes 



Anna Eftes Samuel Alley 

Desire Breed Hugh Alley 

Elizabeth Graves Nehemiah Breed 

Martha Estes Matthew Hawkes 

Lois Collins Sarah Alley 

Sarah Alley Philadelphia Hawkes 

Elizabeth Collins jr. Sarah Hawkes 

Lydia Breed Hannah Estes 

Enoch Collins Deborah Alley 
Daniel Newhall 



Samuel Collins James Purinton 

Ebenezer Breed Jabez Breed 

Isac Basset Isaiah Breed 

Joseph Striker Abijah Newhall 

Benjamin B. Burchsted Hannah Breed 
Zaccheus Collins 

In the certificate of marriage which is given in 
this paper the groom is described as a blacksmith. 
This was a peculiarly appropriate designation, as the 
iron ore used in the first iron works in America was 
taken from this farm. And there were iron workers 
in each generation to his time. When they outgrew 
the old homestead they went to Salem and Marble- 
head, and became makers of anchors and chains and 
whatever in that line appertained to the fitting of 
the growing industry of the maritime towns. 

Zaccheus Collins, the last signer, was the noted 
penman of Lynn in his time, and the diarist for 
forty-four years, who is much quoted by Lewis in 
his " History of Lynn." Being a Quaker, his diary 
is not as piquant as that of his English (nearly) 

68 




Cranberry Meadow 



of Old Lynn 

contemporary, Samuel Pepys, but perhaps fully as 
reliable. 

Many of the other signers of this instrument will 
be remembered by their descendants. Capt. Hugh 
Alley, who ran the first packet from Lynn to Boston, 
was among them. 

Nehemiah Breed, who signed early, as an elder or 
relative, was the son of Samuel Breed, who — Nahant 
being then without an inhabitant — bought the land 
and built the house, in 1717, where Whitney's Hotel 
now stands. There, when he signed this paper, 
Nehemiah lived, and he and Ebenezer were the 
north and south poles of Lynn Quakerism — the 
extreme points of Nahant and Saugus. 

The English turnstile guarded the little by-path 
that led to the house through the avenue of nut- 
trees. On the north was the village smithy, and 
beyond it was the close. To the east, where myriads 
of wild pigeons flew, were the great meadows, 
through which flowed from the dark forests of 
Lynn the limpid waters of the stream now called 
Penny Brook. The only apparent occupation the 
babbling stream has had to perform for many years 
has been to shield from frost the red acres of bright 
cranberries that Mr. Samuel Hawkes has so zealously 
cultivated. Few of the world's people have seen this 
hidden intervale, with its border of pines and willows, 
and great boulders that might have been thrown into 
the meadow in some monster upheaval of Nature. 
But now all is to be changed. The stream, which 
since creation has meandered on till it mingled with 



Hearths and Homes 

old ocean in common with the other feeders of the 
Saugus, is to be diverted into the omnivorous throat 
of the City of Lynn. And then, farewell ! glen of 
quiet — welcome, pond of sweet water ! May the 
people of Lynn who shall enjoy the blessings of its 
store not forget those who guarded it for many 
generations, till the law of eminent domain claimed 
it at their hands for the public good. 

Above all other races of men, our English stock, 
emerging from the forests of Germany, leaping the 
North Sea into Britain, worshiped Nature, and, like 
Robin Hood's outlaws, executed justice in her tem- 
ples. One more giant stride planted the virile seed 
in the wilderness of New England. The denizens of 
the hot-house life of cities know not how men grow 
and broaden as they watch noble trees stretch out 
their protecting arms as they did over their fathers, 
and as they will over their children after them. 
Such training may not fit men for the fopperies of 
life, but it makes reflective, reasoning human beings, 
who see something beyond the polish on a man's 
boots or the style of his hat. There is a vigorous 
oak tree 1 upon one of the farms of this ancient 
estate, under which some years since several persons 

1 Some years ago this veteran of the hillside was blown down in 
a wintry gale. 

Mr. Henry F. Tapley as a child had, with his parents, rested 
under the shade of this giant tree. Out of tender remembrance of 
the past, he caused a portion of its sturdy trunk to be fashioned 
into a frame for a map of Lynn Woods, which hangs upon the 
walls of the Lynn Historical Society's Rooms, where it may endure 
as many years as the tree was growing. 

70 



of Old Lynn 

stood. One queried, " How old is this tree ? " The 
answer told the story of reverence and attachment 
that was an augury of future as well as an assertion 
of past possession — " It is two hundred and fifty 
years old." 



71 



NOTES ON AND ABOUT A SAUGUS POND. 




"Come back to bay-berry scented slopes, 
And fragrant fern and ground mat vine ; 
Breathe airs blown over holt and copse 
Sweet with black birch and pine. ' ' 

]HE olden-time oracles — the autocrats of our 
ubiquitous shoemakers' shops — are vanish- 
^=^^ ing figures, soon to be seen no more. The 
noise and confusion of modern machinery has robbed 
us of the picturesque and contemplative figures of 
other days. A few of these unique philosophers still 
linger upon our borders beyond the smoke of city 
factories. One such, an old Lynner, the bearer of 
one of our oldest names, to which he does no dis- 
credit, has much interested the writer. He is not a 
hermit, nor a recluse, though he lives alone. He 
weekly comes to Lynn to bring in his set of hand- 
made shoes. His abode is one of the ancient shops, 
somewhat larger than the common type. It serves 
him for a dormitory, dining-hall, work-room, museum 
of curiosities and reception-room. Under his white 
hair is a wealth of knowledge of past and present. 
He is specially strong on Lynn pedigrees. His abode 
is pleasantly situated upon the headwaters of Prank- 
er's Pond, and is reached by as romantic a walk 
from Saugus Centre as youthful lovers or plodding 



Hearths and Homes 

seniors can find in a day's journey. Up this pine- 
embowered, rock-shadowed, water-bounded path many 
a town father and village worthy wend their way as 
far as this wayside reminder of other days. 

Though scarcely a house is in the range of vision, 
save the dwelling on the same place, where some of 
his kin reside, at no season can this be a lonesome 
place, for in summer the disciples of Izaak Walton 
resort to the lily-padded pond in the vain search for 
the venerable pickerel that tradition says is to be 
found in some deep recess. In winter the same 
persevering anglers cast their lines through the ice, 
and occasionally a snow trotting-park is to be seen. 
Nature in summer is full of sound of bird, of bee, 
of insect, of soughing pines, of murmuring brooks 
and of voices innumerable. In winter there is oft- 
times an almost uncanny stillness. Yet upon this 
pond in this deathly silence, on the glassy track, 
under the winter's dull sky, there will come a crash 
— not the down-pouring of heaven's artillery, not 
like the rattle of musketry, but rather the sullen 
opening of a cannonade. The hills on the east catch 
the sound, and the echo rebounds against the rocky 
wall across the pond. The Saugus River is raising 
the ice, air-holes are formed, and the north wind, 
aided by water, ice, air and sound, is playing its 
tricks with Nature, hitherto so pale and motionless. 

This devious path, entered by way of Appleton 
Street and Appleton's pulpit, is well worth the atten- 
tion of the few who are not the slaves of fashion and 
vanity. Why is it that a vast majority of our people 

74 



of Old Lynn 

can see nothing in life, save a sordid grasping for 
dollars and a silly display of the fact that they have 
succeeded in the scramble? What do they enjoy? 
A pair of docked-tail horses, a lolling woman clad in 
purple and fine linen, a pug dog and a funeral pro- 
cession round the stereotyped, society-dictated drive 
through Swampscott. Yonder is a beetled cliff, upon 
which Helen MacGregor might have appeared and 
checked our advance with, " Stand and tell me what 
ye seek in MacGregor's country." Down these glades 
to the music of the bagpipes the plaided followers of 
Rob Roy might have marched. The scenery at your 
very doors, good people of Lynn, is as romantic and 
attractive as that of bonnie Scotland. It only needs 
the touch of some Wizard of the North — some 
Walter Scott — to people it with creations that will 
live forever. 

The people who first used this way after the white 
settlement were utilitarians, however. To them the 
woods were full of demons rather than fairies. 
Hard-headed, practical yeomen, they builded better 
than they knew, for they unwittingly, as early as 
1706, created parks for the benefit of the people 
forever. It was in this wise : The town divided 
the common lands in " Seven Divisions." The first 
division began on the west side of Saugus River, 
including what was then and is now called the 
"Six Hundred Acres," which were then in Lynn. 
This tract of land has exactly the same appearance 
it had when the old Puritan first looked upon it. 
Once in a generation the woodman's ax despoils it 

75 



Hearths and Homes 

and lays bare the masses of primeval porphyry. But 
in a few brief years Nature hides the rude scars 
and the hills are covered with hardy New England 
trees. This is the vote of that remote day which 
kept the forest intact and unvexed by walls or 
enclosures : " The towne considering the great diffi- 
culty of laying out highways on the common lands, 
by reason of the swamps, hills, and rockenes of the 
land, theirfore voated, that after said common lands 
shall be divided, every person interested therein, 
shall have free liberty at all times, to pass and 
repass over each others' lotts of lands, to fetch their 
wood and such other things as shall be upon their 
lands, in any place or places, and for no other ends, 
provided they do not downe any sort of tree or trees 
in their so passing over." 

Lott Edmands, through his wife, the daughter of 
one John Burrill, was the owner for the larger part 
of the present century of this estate, which was 
known as the Burrill Place. Mr. Edmands was one 
of the characters of Saugus of the past, and it was 
the ambition of the late celebrated Joseph Ames, the 
artist, to paint his typical Yankee head. The old 
man, however, was fonder of relating his prowess 
in litigation than in posing for posterity, and so the 
picture was lost. Something stronger than accident 
must have drawn Mr. Edmands to this locality. The 
very air hereabout is redolent of disputations. This 
apparently calm and innocent pond has been the 
promoter of lawsuits innumerable from the earliest 
days. 

70 



of Old Lynn 

Adam Hawkes, the first settler, harried the Iron 
Works' proprietors, for flowing his lands in North 
Saugus, down to his death, in 1671. Then the Iron 
Works were worked out, and a hundred years later, 
in 1770, just above the old site, Joseph Hawkes, the 
descendant of the former flooded land owner, became 
himself the flower by building a dam and a grist- 
mill and saw-mill where the present Pranker's dam 
stands. Down from generation to generation the 
lawsuits and contentions went on, till in the fulness 
of time Lott Edmands came upon the scene to revel 
through life with the mill owners in a series of 
forensic sparring matches. Here to a green old 
age he lived, and his greatest pleasure was to fight 
his battles over again as he looked out upon his 
land which he had contested with the water from 
below. 

This was not the residence of the law-loving 
Mr. Edmands. His home was the house occupied 
by Daniel Hitchings in the Revolutionary period, a 
quarter of a mile to the north, still on the west bank 
of the serpentine Saugus. The old house upon this 
place is an oddity in the country. In the seaport 
towns it was common to build houses three stories 
in height, or rather two stories with a demi-story 
above. Salem, Newburyport and Portsmouth are 
full of such. This one is sui generis. There is 
nothing like it in prosaic life. In romance it may 
remind the admirers of Miss Woolson's " Anne " of 
Jeanne Armande's half-house. Its secluded location 
and concurring circumstances gave occasion for the 

77 



Hearths and Homes 

suspicion not so many years ago that it was occupied 
by tenants, who in the unfrequented wilds of the 
South are called " Moonshiners." To-day, however, 
the honest yeoman's waving corn is in no danger 
of passing through the illicit still. 

The half-house obstructs somewhat the northern 
view from our point of vantage. Still we can see 
beyond the Newburyport Turnpike — beyond the 
pleasant western intervale of Oaklandvale, with its 
perennial silver stream, Crystal Brook — up into this 
grand old forest, behind which the sun sets, up 
to Breakheart Hill, beyond which stands that impos- 
ing promontory, Castle Hill, which marks the line 
between Middlesex and Essex, and is the highest 
landmark in Southern Essex. 



78 



THE IRON WORKS MANSION. 




PERSON interested in the lives, manners 
and habits of the earlier days — the tenants, 
the houses and the land around them — is 
often amazed at the utter callousness with which 
men walk about in dead men's shoes and sleep in 
dead men's beds. Men seem to wholly ignore the 
history of domestic surroundings. 

They ask not what other eyes have looked upon 
scenes familiar to themselves. Every roof -tree that 
has weathered the changing seasons of centuries of 
life has overlooked all the varied phases of human 
existence. 

There is a house in Saugus that the tyro in the 
study of Colonial architecture detects at a glance 
as a specimen of the early, better-class houses. Its 
antiquity and its quality are not disguised by the 
fact that its present owner, Mr. A. A. Scott, and 
the town assessors, distinguish it only by the com- 
monplace name of "the Tim Davis house." The 
massive, many-angled chimney, the projection of 
the upper story over the lower (not hidden by the 
modern piazza) infallibly point to the fact that its 
builder was familiar with such houses in England in 
the seventeenth century. The house of Governor 
Coddington, at Newport, R. I., believed to have been 

79 



Hearths and Homes 

built in 1650, identical in the shape of the stack of 
chimneys, and even in the number of windows in 
the front, was standing until crowded out by the 
growth of the town. Buildings of this description 
still remain in Holborn and other parts of London. 

Fortunately for the lovers of Puritan days, this 
one has been allowed to remain, albeit its master no 
longer occupies it, and it has been stripped of much 
of its fair environment ; and its once aristocratic 
front door, from which such old-time worthies as 
Simon Bradstreet looked upon smiling fields, now 
opens upon the back yards of baser buildings. We 
should know the period of its construction and the 
kind of men who erected it even if we knew nothing 
of its history and nothing of the tragedies and come- 
dies of real life that have been acted within its walls. 
However, we do know something of its happenings. 

The archives of the early courts indicate that it 
was " the last and usual place of abode " where legal 
processes innumerable were served, so that the horse 
of the marshal of Essex County knew the way to 
it as well as to his master's barn. This house is 
on the western side of Central Street, opposite the 
" Cinder Banks." It is about fifty feet from the 
present street, which it wholly ignores as it stands 
in due and regular form facing the south. Its east- 
ern side outlook commanded the " Iron Works," the 
primeval forest, the winding river of Saugus, and 
the bay beyond. It is probably the oldest surviving 
specimen of a Colonial house within the territory of 
the original Town of Lynn. It is a good example 

80 



of Old Lynn 

of the better class house of the first settlers. Read- 
ers who revere the fathers of Massachusetts as the 
wisest and best men of the good old English stock 
know what such a house was. Others can see it 
for themselves. 

The plateau upon which stands this spared monu- 
ment of Colonial days was as fair a spot, in its 
primitive aspect, as Puritan eyes looked upon in 
the whole sweep of Massachusetts Bay. The sharp 
but uneasy Thomas Dexter — the same who bought 
Nahant of Black Will for a suit of clothes ; the same 
choleric person who was so little a respecter of dig- 
nitaries as to assault Governor Endicott ; the same 
roving spirit who was a leader among the " ten men 
of Saugus," who founded Sandwich in 1637 — was 
the first owner of the soil hereabout, as civilized 
states occupy the land as opposed to Nomads and 
Nationalists. 

The very first paper recorded in the Registry of 
Deeds at Salem has an interest from its quaintness, 
from its connection with this place, from the parties 
to it, the one, notorious Dexter, the other, noted 
Bradstreet, of whom we shall hear more. 

The Records of Salem 1640. 

Book 1, Page 1. 

Thomas Dexter of Lyn, yeoman, by his deed dated 
[22d of Octr] 1639, hath morgaged his fearme in Lyn 
conteyning about [ ] acres with all his howses, 
meadows and broken [ ] grounds thereon for two 
oxen & 2 bulls upon condition of payment to Symon 

81 



Hearths and Homes 

Broadstreet of Ipswich [ ] 90£ the first day of 
August then next following with a reservation upon 
the sale of the said fearme to give the said Dexter 
the overplus above the debt and damages of the 
said 90£. 

We copy the paper as it is in the Registry ; it is 
not the mortgage itself, but a sort of caveat or 
notice, to whomever it might concern, that such a 
claim was in existence. It was made two years 
before any law required such instruments to be 
recorded, before the adoption by the General Court 
of the Body of Liberties of 1641. It was fifty years 
after Farmer Dexter bought his two oxen and two 
bulls with Mr. Bradstreet's money upon the security 
of the land when the Governor finally released his 
claim upon the Iron Works farm. Well might he 
write his release "from the beginning of the world." 
The claim was from the beginning of the new world 
— the Puritan world. 

Then the village of Hammersmith, with its forge 
and foundry, with its noise and smoke and brawny 
men and men of brain, came from Old England 
to work the bog ore of the neighborhood into the 
precious metal, iron. Then came Richard Leader 
Gent, Agent of "ye company of undertakers of ye 
Iron Works," and built his house so well and strong 
and sound that in spite of neglect and ill-usage it 
has survived the fortunes and families of many 
generations of tenants. It has stood so long that 
the industry which caused its erection has left 
behind it only dim tradition of its existence and a 



of Old Lynn 

pile of scoria upon the river's bank, which, to the 
stranger, appears as much the work of Nature as 
yonder jasper-bedded Round Hill. 

In the conveyance to Leader the figures indicate 
the date when he, fresh from London, began to 
improve the Works and to build his house in Farmer 
Dexter's corn field. Here is the record : — 

The Records of Salem 1640. 

Book 1, Page 4 
25, 1, 1646. 

Thomas Dexter of Lyn in the County of Essex 
ye[oman] for the sum of 40£ sterling] hath sowld 
unto Richard Leder for ye use of the Iron works 
all that land, wch by reason of [a] damme now 
agreed to be made, shall overflow and all sufficient 
ground for a water course from the damme, to the 
works to be erected, and alsoe all [the] land betwene 
the an[cient] water course and the new extended 
flume or water course togeather with five acres and 
an halfe of land lying in the corn field most conven- 
ient for the Iron Works and also tooe convenient 
cartwayes that is to one on each side of the prem- 
ises as by a deed indented bearing date the twentie 
seaventh of January, 1645, more at lardge apth. 

The very names of some of its owners have been 
almost forgotten, but Samuel Hayman was a Coun- 
cilor in 1692 in the first year under the Provincial 
Charter of William and Mary. Later he held the 
same office under the able, adroit, scheming Governor 
Joseph Dudley. In 1686 Samuel and Nathan Hay- 
man owned "the Mansion House and Iron Works 
farm." Then other names of more than ordinary, 



Hearths and Homes 

more than Colonial, fame are connected with the 
place. The venerable Simon Bradstreet, Governor 
of the Colony (before and after the Andros usurpa- 
tion) held the same under a mortgage, which on 
February 15, 1688, he released " with all claims from 
the beginning of the world," to Samuel Appleton, 
Sen. and Jr. The magistrate before whom the 
release was made was Waitt Winthrop. 

Let it be remembered that at this period — or 
from the day of the deposition of Andros, April 19, 
1689, till the arrival of Sir William Phips, May 14, 
1692 — Massachusetts enjoyed its only three years 
prior to the American Revolution of pure and abso- 
lute freedom, independent alike of Crown or Parlia- 
ment. It was a government deriving all its powers 
from the people. When men talk of the sturdy 
qualities of races let them recall the fact that the 
Puritan, Simon Bradstreet of Salem, the Nicias of 
New England, who was called by universal approval 
to be Governor, was eighty-seven years of age when 
he took the office. The witchcraft historians agree 
that if he had not been superseded by the arrival 
of the Royal Charter, in 1692, the witchcraft prose- 
cutions would have failed. The veneration of the 
people and his own mental powers at ninety years, 
save for foreign interference, would have spared 
our people that dark horror. 

Samuel Appleton, the elder grantee, was the Indian 
fighter and, a few years later, Witchcraft Judge. 
The younger Appleton occupied the house. 

Then James Taylor, an opulent merchant of Boston, 

84 



of Old Lynn 

by numerous conveyances and releases, obtained title 
and possession of "that farm and tract of land, 
anciently purchased of Thomas Dexter and others." 
Here James Taylor lived in Colonial grandeur and 
died when his time came. 

It almost seems as if there was such a quality 
as transmitted proneness to litigation in certain 
localities. Farmer Dexter's fondness for strife left 
behind him as an inheritance for the Iron Works 
unceasing legal dispute with the settlers and with 
creditors. Major Thomas Savage, of Boston, the 
famous Indian fighter, was familiar with this house, 
and when Mr. John Gifford was agent of the com- 
pany, in 1653, he attached its property, including 
the Mansion House, and obtained a large judgment 
against it. After the decease of Mr. James Taylor 
the demon of Dexter's unrest still lurked about the 
scene, and not content with the ordinary forms of 
litigation, it raised a storm over the will of Mr. 
Taylor, and caused the General Court to pass, in 
1719 and 1721, several Special Acts authorizing his 
widow, Rebecca, and after her decease, her son, 
William, to keep up a legal warfare with one Chris- 
topher Taylor of Boston, who was Mr. Taylor's elder 
son, presumably by another wife. William prevailed 
and remained here, though he parted with the Man- 
sion House to Daniel Mansfield, of Boston Street, 
Lynn, and his grandson, Thomas Mansfield. Judge 
Samuel Sewall's Diary, published by the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society [vol. 3, p. 94], under date, 
1716, July 29, relates : - 

85 



Hearths and Homes 

" Last night Mr. Treasurer Taylor died at his house 
in Lin. The corps was brought in a Horse-Litter to 
the Ferry. From the Ferry to his House in Town." 

" Augt. 2. To Cambridge again by reason of the 
Admiralty ; so lost Dr. C. Mather's Lecture. Came 
home time enough to the Funeral of Mr. Treasurer 
Taylor. Bearers, Lt. Govr. Mr. Winthrop ; Sewall, 
Mr. Eliakim Hutchinson ; Mr. John Burrill, Speaker, 
Mr. Treasurer Allen. Skarfs and Gloves. No Rings 
nor Escutcheons. I saw no Ministers at the house 
but Mr. Shepard and Mr. Wadsworth : They had 
Scarvs." 

James Taylor was Treasurer of the Province from 
June 17, 1693, to June 25, 1714. 

From 1693 to the Revolution only four persons 
held the office ; viz., Taylor, Allen, William Foye 
and Harrison Gray. On Taylor's retirement the fol- 
lowing vote was passed : — 

Council Records. 

Dec. 24, 1715. 

To Mr. James Taylor, the sum of Ninety pounds 
in consideration of his good and faithfull service for 
many years as Treasurer of this Province, and his 
frequently advancing his own money in the publick 
affairs and the considerable loss he has sustained in 
the execution of that Office. 

Two sons, Christopher and William, and six daugh- 
ters survived their father, James. Of the sons, 
Christopher seems never to have married ; at least 
his will leaves all his property to his natural son, 
Charles Taylor, son of his servant, Anne Bell. 

86 



of Old Lynn 

William Taylor, of Lynn, married Sarah, daughter 
of Samuel Burrill. He had two daughters only ; viz., 
Rebecca, who married her second cousin, Timothy 
Orne, and Anne, who married Benjamin Parker, of 
Lynn. 

James Taylor's will was proved August 21, 1716. 
The inventory of his estate has in the list of personal 
property some curious items : — 

" A man servt. 10£ 
a boy 10£ 

A maid 5£ 

An old infirm negro man 6£ = 31£ " 

Also 219 ounces of sterling silver plate at 8 shillings 
= £83 12s. 

William Taylor's inventory, made in 1769, among 
the live stock appraises a " negro man Ben 10£." 
Slaves in Massachusetts were not rated as very 
valuable. 

William Taylor was blessed with daughters, but 
no son, so the surname was lost, and a considerable 
portion of the lands descended to the name of Parker, 
through the marriage of Anna Taylor. The spirit of 
contention appears to have been exorcised upon the 
advent of Thomas Mansfield, though his family be- 
came mourners by his untimely death, caused by a 
fall from his horse. The widow, however, became 
somewhat reconciled, for she had changed her name 
to Cheever before his estate was settled. 

In the time of the first Thomas Mansfield this 
was the centre of life in the old town, for he had 

87 



Hearths and Homes 

a clothier's shop, a fulling-mill, a dye-house, an " arch 
house or vault," a grist-mill, "and the conveniency 
of the stream," as well as a cider-mill. At the time 
his inventory was filed, October 27, 1758, the value of 
slaves seems to have increased, as his negro woman 
and child are appraised at forty pounds. Under the 
will of his father, who died the same year, Thomas, 
or his estate, came into possession of the " negro boy 
Caesar." By the same will the " negro man servant 
Pompey" became a freedman. Pompey was the 
most noted slave in Lynn, reputed to have been a 
prince in Africa. He made his home under the pro- 
tection of the Mansfield family in a sunny glade 
across the river. Besides his lands, mills and slaves, 
Thomas Mansfield received under the will of his 
father, Daniel Mansfield, Esq., the treasured cane of 
his great-grandfather, Andrew Mansfield, the first 
Town Clerk of Lynn, as well as the first and last 
person here, designated Sergeant, as the English call 
pleaders at the bar. Its modern name results from 
the fact that Sally, daughter of the third Thomas 
Mansfield, happened to marry Capt. Timothy Davis, 
from whom its title passed to Mr. Scott, 1 who has so 
many houses that he allows the name to remain 
when the substance has vanished. 

The building of the bridge at East Saugus very 
soon diverted the course of colonial travel between 

1 Mr. Andrew A. Scott, long an active factor in the business, 
social and religious life of Saugus, has deceased since this was 
written. He carried on the woolen manufacturing business at 
Scott's mills under the name of F. Scott & Son. 

88 



of Old Lynn 

Ipswich and Salem and Boston from the way by this 
house, but a large sum of the world's history has 
been discussed upon the high-backed settle by its 
huge fire-place as the events transpired. The prin- 
cipal promoter of the Iron Works, the worshipful 
Capt. Robert Bridges, speaker of the House of Depu- 
ties of the Colony, lived near by, and came often 
to discuss with its master the progress of the won- 
derful career of Oliver Cromwell. 

The occupants of this house were parishioners of 
Rev. Jeremiah Shepard, and rejoiced when the coun- 
try rose and imprisoned and sent back to England 
Sir Edmund Andros, after the deposition of the last 
of the Stuarts. The house was almost a century old 
when the Massachusetts provincial troops electrified 
England by the capture of the French Gibraltar, 
Louisburg, in 1745. It was venerable when the men 
of Essex and Middlesex met the Briton on Lexington 
Green, April 19, 1775, and Thomas Mansfield went 
forth from its shelter to do a patriot's part in the 
War of the Revolution. 

It was bearing up bravely under a century and 
three-quarters of life when the Corsican Bandit lost 
the Battle of Waterloo, and Capt. Richard Mansfield 
became first clerk of the newly-incorporated Town of 
Saugus in 1815. 

















- 


t/fif *. 





THE VINEGAR HILL CIRCUIT. 



To one who has been long in city pent, 
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair 
And open face of heaven. ' ' 

— Keats. 



|||N the vicinity of Saugus River, in a circle of 
H| which Vinegar Hill is the centre, cluster 
E " ' ^ spots which history, legend and romance 
associate with the early days. 

The Pirates' Glen, weird and grewsome by reason 
of its association with the secrets of lawless men, 
and dark, hidden and damp even when the mid- 
summer sun is in the zenith, lies towards East 
Saugus from the summit of the hill. 

The Pirates' Lookout is a spur of the same range 
of felsite rocks, from the summit of which the free- 
booters scanned the sea beyond the Point of Pines 
and Nahant for the sails of the black-hulled craft 
that was expected to bear them away from the 
restraints of the land to the freedom and license of 
life on the ocean wave. Instead of which appeared 
the proud ensign — the Union Jack — of the mistress 
of the seas and bore the doomed men away to the 
condign punishment of English justice. The men 
have been in their unknown graves for centuries, 
but sentimental feet yet tread the beaten track that 

91 



Hearths and Homes 

leads'"down into the gloomy retreat, shut in by the 
everlasting- walls of porphyry. 
As the point of the compass moves round westerly 




~(§)y e GkR Pirate* Zee ? e fri^ >fl fcf 



from the Glen, it intercepts a sunny glade between 
the gleaming river and the forest-covered hill. Here 
lived and died the freedman, Pompey, said to have 
been a king in Africa. He was freed by the will 

92 



of Old Lynn 

of Daniel Mansfield in 1757. The little nook of land 
conveyed to him under the name of Pompey Mans- 
field contains two acres, and the stone walls around 
it and the little gambrel-roofed house are still there. 
Mr. Lewis says : — 

" Every year, during his life, the slaves, not only 
of Lynn, but of Boston, Salem and the neighboring- 
towns, obtained leave of their masters, for one day 
to visit King Pompey. This to them was a day of 
real happiness. Far from the eye of their masters, 
they collected on a little glade by the river side, and 
fancied themselves for a few short hours, on the 
banks of the Gambia. Each youth on his way gath- 
ered wreaths, and each maiden, flowers, of which 
they formed a crown to place on the head of their 
acknowledged prince. The old men talked of the 
happy days they had seen in their native land and 
called to mind the wives and children of their earlier 
years ; while the youths and the maidens wandered 
along the river side, or strayed through the forest, 
and exchanged smiles and formed dreams of happi- 
ness which the future did not fulfil." 

Beyond the Pompey place is a magnificent tract 
of white pine, the like of which an old woodsman 
said he had not looked upon this side of New 
Hampshire. This same spot is understood to have 
given title to one of the Lynn bard's most ambitious 
poems. He prefaced it with this glowing tribute to 
the locality that inspired it : — 

"Thou must know, gentle reader, that the name 
of Shady Grove is not an invention of the poet's 

93 



Hearths and Homes 

fancy, but the appellation of a place as fertile as 
the valley of Agra, beneath whose embowering trees 
glides a rivulet delightful as Yarrow ; a scene that 
need only have echoed to the harp of Hafiz or of 
Burns to become associated with the dearest ideas 
of memory and love." 

The stately proportions of Round Hill, over the 
river, are mirrored in the placid water as twilight 
comes on. This hill, so fair to look upon, captivated 
that scientific dissector of earth's properties, Prof. 
Edward Hitchcock. He had it engraved for his 
great work, "The Geology of Massachusetts." He 
thus speaks of its hidden treasures : — 

"Jasper. — This mineral, reckoned among the pre- 
cious stones by the ancients, is not uncommon with 
the porphyry of the eastern part of the State. 
Saugus has long been known as its principal locality. 
Specimens from that place, are indeed, more beauti- 
ful than any which I have met with from other parts 
of the State, though, were I writing the scientific 
history of the mineral, I might be permitted to doubt 
whether it is the genuine jasper of mineralogists. 
But as it greatly resembles true jasper, it may, with- 
out practical error be considered such. Its color is 
red and sometimes it is traversed by a white vein, 
which makes it resemble the striped jasper of 
Egypt." 

Again the moving point of the divider sweeps 
around the circle, and now it strikes, still on the 
west bank of the river, the bed of scoria, so inter- 
esting to students of the earlier days, known to the 

94 



of Old Lynn 

villagers as the "Cinder Banks." It crosses the 
river to the east bank, over the fording place of 
the fathers, and pushing on to the north rests upon 
Choose Hill and on its abandoned road, traversed 
two centuries ago by the farmers of Lynnfield on 
their pious way to and from the old church on Lynn 
Common. The name is a reminder of a controversy 
which was the beginning of the end of the old Town 
of Lynn — the first step which led up in later years 
to the creation, first of the Town of Lynnfield, and 
second of the Town of Saugus. For seventy years 
all the people had worshiped as one parish. The 
hardship of the long miles from Lynnfield to Lynn 
bore upon the out-dwellers. A committee represent- 
ing the three sections which we know as Lynn, 
Saugus and Lynnfield attempted to choose a site 
for the meeting-house which should be reasonably 
convenient for all. They selected this now wooded 
hill as about equally distant from each locality. 
Lynn objected. Lynnfield was set off as a parish 
or district, November 17, 1712, and its inhabitants 
were to be freed from parish taxes as soon as a 
meeting-house should be built and a minister settled. 
This was accomplished in 1715, and the Second Parish 
of Lynn was duly organized. Saugus later, in 1738, 
became the Third or West Parish. 

The natural result was that later the two parishes 
became towns — Lynnfield in 1814, and Saugus in 
1815. All these things happened because the people 
of the low lands of Lynn would not go up to this 
hill country of Saugus to listen to the preaching 

95 



Hearths and Homes 

of the gospel according to Puritanism. The name 
" Choose " or " Chosen" has remained. 

In those days there were several houses upon this 
hill. The last of the old places disappeared in the 
opening years of the present century. It stood upon 
the eastern declivity of the hill, not far from where 
the house of Harrison Wilson is now situated. Its 
eastern outlook was down the valley which now is 
filled with the sparkling waters of Birch Pond. Its 
owner was John Knights, who was a gardener in the 
service of Landlord Jacob Newhall, of the Anchor 
Tavern. Mr. B. F. Newhall, the grandson of Land- 
lord Newhall, in his interesting sketches of Saugus, 
written thirty years ago, says that the old house 
was standing within his remembrance. Mr. Newhall 
had lived to see the extinction of the Knights family 
and to see the once rural and happy home lapse 
into the wilderness. 

It is hard for the casual observer to realize that 
these oak-covered hillsides once were dotted with 
the abodes of men. It must be remembered that 
in the early days of the settlement the Iron Works 
was the centre of the life of the town. And even 
after that ceased operations its water privilege - 
the best in Lynn — was utilized for grist-mills and 
fulling-mills down to the present day, when it is 
used by the woolen mills of Pranker and Scott. 

The early settlers came out of the fen counties 
of England. They were tired of flat lands. They 
passed by the low plains of Lynn and built upon 
sightly hills. Later the gregarious habits, sedentary 

90 



of Old Lynn 

pursuits, such as shoemaking, the difficulty of reap- 
ing adequate returns from hard soil, and the aban- 
donment of the Iron Works, gradually depopulated 
this territory. 

Now the moving point passes through the western 
end of Birch Pond, over the site of Capt. Caleb 
Downing's house, into and through the Vinegar Hill 
Road that runs over the highlands from Walnut 
Street to Hesper Street. Here the evidences of 
abandonment are plainer and more recent. Along 
this road are many acres of land, where the aggres- 
sive pitch pine has usurped the place of the apple 
orchards of the past. Possibly this may be because 
our people, under the stress of legislation, have 
become so temperate as to abjure the use of the 
product of the cider-mill, which in the olden time 
was a necessary part of a well-regulated farm. A 
more probable reason is that people, on account of 
the flocking-together habit before alluded to, have 
forgotten their love for pure air and noble views 
of land and sea, and prefer to jostle each other in 
crowded streets and stifling tenements in smoky 
cities. 

Almost round the circle, of which the Glen was 
the initial point, the divider strikes a giant boulder, 
perched on top of a rocky knoll. This is the Boar's 
Head. Of this marvel of the forces of Nature in 
the glacial period a story is told which may illustrate 
the survival in a poor, wrecked intellect of that love 
of Nature and freedom which had characterized 
his family. This boulder is so steep and high that 

97 



Hearths and Homes 

it can only be ascended by a nimble young man 
with a printer's stick. On the level top a noble 
prospect, embracing ocean, forest, city and hamlet, 
rewards the toil. The rock once had a strange 
climber. The older people about Boston Street will 
remember Oliver Fuller Mansfield with his harmless, 
partly demented, wandering ways. Oliver was, of 
course, a shoemaker. One day he was missed from 
shop and house. After more than the ordinary 
length of wonted disappearances had passed, the 
neighborhood — say Federal Square of to-day — be- 
came alarmed. The country around about was 
searched, and after a weary tramp through swamps 
and over hills tangled with underbrush, Oliver was 
espied, or rather heard, by the sound of his hammer 
ringing upon the lapstone, on top of Boar's Head, 
with seat and kit, serenely at work ; fairer outlook 
no shoemaker's shop ever had. 

Having traveled superficially round the circle now 
wild and natural as when the red man trod the same 
single-file foot-paths we tread to-day, we may seek 
the central fixed point. We find it mid-way between 
Vinegar Hill and Choose Hill. The only heathen 
man who now violates the sanctity of the place is 
the mercenary employer of the rude wood chopper. 
In the annals of Lynn, under date 1642, Alonzo Lewis 
thus writes : — 

" A great alarm was occasioned through the colony 
by a report that the Indians intended to exterminate 
the English. The people were ordered to keep a 
watch from sunset to sunrise, and blacksmiths were 

98 



of Old Lynn 

directed to suspend all other business till the arms 
of the colony were repaired. A house was built for 
the soldiers, and another, about forty feet long, for 
a safe retreat for the women and children of the 
town in case of an attack from the Indians. These 
houses were within the limits of Saugus, about 






MrSim&M 










^1 H 



£,_-*■ 



fe==s#^--~4 i. 



■■■lllliii 




*&/ 



;f* 






GARRISON HOUSE (Restored; 

eighty rods from the eastern boundary, and about 
the same distance south of Walnut Street. The 
cellars of both these buildings remain, and near 
them, on the east, is a fine unfailing spring." 1 

1 The site of the garrison house, with its never- failing spring of 
pure water, has recently become a holding of the Lynn Historical 
Society, to be forever preserved for historical and public purposes. 
It was probably selected by the early settlers as a place of refuge 

09 



Hearths and Homes 

Here then was the heart of Lynn in the very 
infancy of its settlement. Lynn to the east along 
Strawberry Brook, Saugus to the west by the Saugus 
River, and Lynnend, or Lynnfield, to the north, 
between Humfrey's Pond and Lake Quannapowitt. 
Sixty years have passed since Mr. Lewis wrote, but 
the traces of the cellars are there yet, and the water 
of the fern-shaded spring is as cool and invigorating 
in this year of grace, 1890, as it was two hundred 
and forty-eight years ago, when the rude garrison 
house was built and the red Indian skulked in the 
forest shadows. 

These wild and romantic spots are all within the 
territory of Saugus. One may recline upon the 
velvety moss of the crest of Vinegar Hill and idly 
look upon Bunker Hill Monument, the gilded dome 
of the State House, the deep blue waters of the 
Atlantic, the dark forests or the nestling hamlets of 
Saugus. 

upon the same plan that the neighboring eminence, "Choose Hill," 
was mooted as a proper location for the erection of the parish 
meeting-house — that is, it was a convenient rallying point for the 
three settlements, Lynn, Saugus and Lynnfield, which later became 
three parishes and then three towns. 



100 




The Roby Elm 



The famous Roby Elm, which .till flourishes on the street line of the old 
parsonage, is said to have been taken from the woods by Mr. Roby 

With the little sapling on his shoulder, the Parson reached home at dusk- 
He stood the tree in his front hall over night and planted it Ihe next morning 

^ ears, the climate and the soil have favored our noble New England tree 



REV. JOSEPH ROBY AND HIS TIMES. 




" 'T is greatly wise to talk with our past hours 

And ask them what report they gave to Heaven." 

JO EVEN wander in thought along the Saugus 
River of the past and not to largely mention 
Parson Roby would be as absurd as is the 
trite saying in reference to playing the story of 
Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, for he was 
the spiritual guide of the people of the West Parish 
of Lynn for more than fifty years. 

When Mr. Roby came to Saugus, the strictness, 
though not the influence, of Puritanism had relaxed. 
He was better fitted to the new than to the old. He 
was born in Boston in 1724, graduated in 1742, and 
ordained minister of the Third Parish in 1752. He 
served this parish fifty-one years. 

He was an excellent scholar, and was highly es- 
teemed for his social virtues. He was not disputa- 
tive nor combative, like many of his creed. He was 
the benevolent father rather than the austere teacher 
of his people. We find two published Fast Day ser- 
mons of his, one in 1781, the other in 1794. His 
first wife was Rachel Proctor, of Boston, and they 
had eight children. 

Parson Roby's tombstone is in the old church-yard 

101 



Hearths and Homes 

just by the spot where the meeting-house stood. It 
is by the roadside in the centre of a group that is a 
touching reminder of the closeness of our ancestors' 
family relations. The inscription of the stone at 
Mr. Roby's grave reads as follows : — 

" Sacred to the memory of the Rev. Joseph Roby, 
who departed this life January 31st, 1803, in the 
80th year of his age and 53d of his ministry in this 
parish. 

"Through life a lover of learning and virtue, a 
sincere friend, a kind and affectionate husband and 
parent, and a devoted Christian. 

" By a constant practice of the Christian and social 
virtues, he rendered himself beloved and respected 
in the various walks of domestic life. Reader, 
wouldst thou be honored in life and lamented in 
death, go and do likewise. 

"No pain, no grief, no anxious fear 

Invade thy bounds ; no mortal woes 
Can reach the peaceful sleeper here 

While angels watch his soft repose. 
So Jesus slept : God's dying Son, 

Passed thro' the grave, and blest the bed ; 
Then rest, dear saint, till from His throne 

The morning break and pierce the shade." 

By his side is seen the name Rachel Roby ; next 
are the marble records of Nathan and Sarah Hawkes. 
Beyond may be seen the names Daniel and Rachel 
Hawkes, and between all, white and pure and spot- 
less, is the stone that tells of young life taken 
away on the threshold of promise — Rachel Hawkes. 
These three couples, after walking side by side the 
allotted span of man, have beside them this fair 

102 






of Old Lynn 

flower of youth and innocence, this beautiful Rachel, 
great-granddaughter, granddaughter and daughter. 

The house occupied by Parson Roby yet stands 
where it was built, much modernized, but it is now 
upon the " Main " Street of Saugus. When he lived 
there it was a mere lane. The parson visited his 
scattered parishioners on horseback. All other trav- 
eling, except on foot, was done with clumsy ox-teams, 
which crawled creaking along the uncertain way. 
The driver of an ox-cart had abundant leisure for 
contemplation, and need of patience. 

This was the time that saw the becoming knee- 
breeches, black silk stockings and bright buckles go 
out of fashion and the ugly long trousers come into 
vogue. Gallant horseback-riding was the rule and 
not the exception. 

The Puritan Sabbath, maligned though it is, despite 
of long sermons, was the weekly day of rest, when the 
whole community came together to exchange gossip, 
wit and information. It was a rural meet, where 
right living, rather than the tawdry display of modern 
churches, was considered a mark of superiority. 

Conditions and needs change. An electric railway 
or a German Sunday may meet a craving of to-day, 
but the fathers enjoyed their way and by it they 
grew rich in grace, having founded the ideal civili- 
zation of the world. They reared strong sons and 
daughters, fit to combat error in all its forms. Was 
not this enough of pleasure for a rugged race of 
men, who saw something beyond the mere day - 
eating and drinking — and to-morrow — gone ? 

103 



Hearths and Homes 

It is the fashion nowadays to lash the Puritan 
and bewail the strictness of his rules for life and 
conduct. No man of the times who was worthy of 
or desired in such a community ever found fault 
with the regulations which themselves originated. 
It was only the evil onlookers among their contem- 
poraries who protested, and the scoffers of later 
days who cry out against them. Suppose they did 
not have certain amusements of to-day. One man 
or one generation has no right to sit in judgment 
upon another. 

People talk glibly of the austerity of our fathers. 
Read this from the Parish Records of 1781, March 25 : 
" Parish met according to adjournment : excused Ezra 
Coates from being Parish Clerk and chose Major 
David Parker ; adjourned to meet at Jacob Newhall's 
Innholder, the 8th day of April." This is the first 
vote of the kind on the records, though such are 
frequent afterwards, there being a desire to make 
the meetings a little more genial, cider and flip not 
being prohibited. After this the warrants called the 
meetings at the Meeting House, but the adjourned 
meetings were uniformly to be had at ''Landlord" 
Newhall's. 

Mr. Roby was an exemplar in many ways of the 
compact force of organized Puritanism. He made 
himself a part of the people, to whom he dedicated 
his life-work. With the early teachers there was 
no drifting about from parish to parish. When his 
calling was assured it was to live and die and be 
buried with his own. Such men as he identified 

104 



of Old Lynn 

themselves with the air, the soil, the traditions of 
the locality, becoming, as it were, a part of all. 

Let it be understood that Mr. Roby, in spite of 
his amiability, was a true member of the Puritan 
Church militant. The Puritan was to the backbone 
a fighting Christian. Those who stayed at home cut 
off the head of King Charles, and later drove his 
ignoble son into servile retirement under the protec- 
tion of the King of France. Those who came to 
these shores were about to enter into a gigantic 
struggle with the arbitrary power of the Crown, 
which resulted in the dismemberment of the British 
Empire and the foundation of the Great Republic. 

Four days after the Battle of Lexington, on the 
23d of April, 1775, the people of Lynn chose a com- 
mittee to consult measures of safety. This commit- 
tee consisted of Rev. John Treadwell, minister of 
the First Parish, Rev. Joseph Roby, minister of the 
Third Parish, and Deacon Daniel Mansfield. On the 
next Sunday, by recommendation of the Provincial 
Congress, all men who lived within twenty miles of 
the seacoast went to church armed. The parson 
carried under one arm his cartridge-box, his sermon 
under the other, and went into the pulpit with his 
musket loaded. Bunker Hill came, and then war 
with its horrid mien passed away from Massachusetts 
Bay. 

Mr. Roby's Christian name calls attention to a 
marked characteristic of the Puritan. Down to the 
Revolution few children were baptized in New Eng- 
land who did not bear a Hebrew name. England 

105 



Hearths and Homes 

had been Anglo-Saxon, Roman, Danish, Norse and 
Norman. Other races and creeds had heroes and 
saints, but the Puritan had one book — the Hebrew- 
Scriptures. From it he took his faith and his chil- 
dren's names. 

The village green, where stood the House of God 
in which Parson Roby preached and practised for so 
many years the unadulterated doctrines of pure 
Puritanism, still remains to please the eye and to 
recall an age which was kinder and less intolerant 
than modern historians are prone to picture. 

" Happy are the people whose annals are blank." 
There is a mine of wisdom concealed in this sentence. 
A quotation from Gibbon in English, or from Voltaire 
in French, may tend to illustrate the meaning : " His- 
tory, which is, indeed, little more than the register 
of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." 

These people lived long and affluent lives and 
impressed their personalities upon the community 
and upon following generations, because and by 
virtue of the absence of tumult, excitement and 
controversy. While the great outer world was con- 
vulsed, Saugus minded its own affairs, reared its 
children, tended its sick, buried its dead, and flour- 
ished by the peaceful pursuits of agriculture. There 
was no history here, but much that tended to develop 
and equip the stock for the contest — for the posses- 
sion of a continent. 

Puritanism has dominated New England for two 
hundred and fifty years. It has stamped its virtues 
upon the great belt of States from Plymouth Rock 

106 



of Old Lynn 

by the Atlantic to the Golden Gate of the Pacific. It 
may be that here at home, under changed conditions, 
it will not be able hereafter to hold this supremacy. 
Let us, therefore, while the past is vivid, while its 
traditions are in such bold relief, gather and guard 
memorials of a sturdv race. 



101 



THE FLAGG-GRAY HOUSE. 



IBjiKjOST of the historic old houses of Lynn have 
been destroyed or degraded to make room 
for the modern bustling city. Some remain, 



— j . ^ „ — , 

but as our lantern-slide pictures show, they are 
mostly in remote parts of the old town — in the 
sections unaffected by the manufacturing impetus — 
in Saugus and Lynnfield. 

Along Boston Street — the old Colonial highway - 
are a few spared monuments of the earlier days. 
One such is the house known as indicated by our 
caption. It stands at the angle of Marion Street, 
facing Boston Street, and still has a pleasant outlook 
in spite of its environment. 

This sketch may stimulate some student of leisure 
to trace the history of the house and its occupants. 
We know that it was the home of Dr. John Flagg, 
who was the son of Rev. Ebenezer Flagg, of Chester, 
N. H. He was born in 1743, and graduated at Har- 
vard in 1761. He came to Lynn in 1769, and entered 
upon the exacting duties of a physician, in which 
calling he evinced ability and won the fees and con- 
fidence of the community. He was an active patriot 
in the Revolution, and was chosen a member of the 
Committee of Safety in 1775, and commissioned as 
Colonel. In 1781, Governor John Hancock, the first 

109 



Hearths and Homes 

Governor under the new Constitution, appointed him 
one of the first three Justices of the Peace in Lynn. 

He married Susanna Fowle, and they had one 
daughter, Susanna, who became the wife of Dr. 
James Gardiner, an equally noted physician and 
citizen. Dr. Flagg died May 27, 1793. 

An earlier occupant of the house was Abraham Gray, 
a shoemaker, whose father, William Gray, was in 1750 
one of only three persons who carried on the shoe busi- 
ness in Lynn so extensively as to employ journeymen. 

Under this roof -tree, on June 27, 1750, was born a 
son to Abraham Gray. The boy was named William, 
who became the richest and most successful merchant 
of his time in New England. He was familiarly 
known as " Billy " Gray, and in 1810 he became Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of Massachusetts, to which office he 
was re-elected in 1811. Mr. Gray died in Boston, 
November 3, 1825. From his five sons numerous 
and eminently respectable descendants claim origin. 

Among them is Mr. Justice Horace Gray of the 
United States Supreme Court, who, a few years since, 
visited the birthplace of his grandfather. 

Mr. Gray's only daughter, Lucia, married Col. 
Samuel Swett. Her son was Rev. William Gray 
Swett, the pleasantly remembered pastor of the 
Unitarian Society in Lynn, from January 1, 1840, to 
the day of his death, February 15, 1843. 

The gambrel or curb roof was a style of architec- 
ture common in England when our ancestors left 
there. It relieved the plainness of the roof lines, 
and it gave added height in the attic without carry- 
ing the frame of the building up another story. 

no 



THE MEETING-HOUSE OF THE SECOND 
CHURCH IN LYNN. 




jNE of the resulting events from the building 

of the Old Tunnel Meeting-House upon the 

Common, instead of the compromise location 

- Choose Hill — proposed by the settlers at Saugus 

and Lynnfield, was the establishment of the North 

Precinct of Lynn upon substantially the lines of the 

present town of Lynnfield. 

The initial move for the setting off of a new 
Precinct was on January 16, 1711-12, in a petition of 
the Inhabitants of Lynn Farms. The distance to 
travel for worship to the First Parish meeting-house 
was the grievance. Reading (Wakefield) was nearer, 
but another town, the Parish meeting-house of which 
was already crowded, and which they had no right 
to attend, though they contributed to it as well as 
to their own Parish. 

On November 17, 1712, Lynn voted, at the request 
of our neighbors, the farmers, so-called, " That all 
the part of the town that lies upon the northerly 
side of that highway that leads from Salem to 
Reading be set off for a Precinct, and when they 
shall have a meeting-house and a minister, quali- 
fied according to law, settled to preach the Word 
of God amongst them, they shall be wholly freed 

in 



Hearths and Homes 

from paying to the ministry of the town, and not 
before." 

The inhabitants of the new Precinct bought a 
parcel of land, which is now a part of "The Green " 
at Lynnfield Centre. The deed is dated "This 
seventh day of December, 1714, and in the first year 
of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, George, King of 
Great Britain," etc. 

In the description are these words, " And the said 
parcel of land is butted and bounded as followeth, 
viz. : all that land where on ye sd Precinct Meeting 
House now standeth." 

So that the meeting-house was erected prior to 
December 7, 1714, though the first pastor, Rev. 
Nathaniel Sparhawk, was not installed over the 
Second Church in Lynn till August 17, 1720. 

The house was originally nearly square, or to be 
exact, it was about thirty-seven and a half feet long, 
and about thirty feet wide ; height of " post " about 
eighteen feet. In 1782 it was enlarged by cutting 
it open and inserting a new portion, making the 
building fourteen feet longer. No alteration has 
ever been made in the height. There were originally 
doors on three sides, like the other Puritan meeting- 
houses. The pulpit and the pulpit window were on 
the north side. 

There were galleries upon three sides. For one 
hundred and ten years no fire was built in the house, 
and the upper part of the building was used for the 
storage of the powder of the Precinct, which was 
considered almost as essential as preaching. Our 

112 



of Old Lynn 

fathers believed in the Cromwellian maxim, " Put 
your trust in God ; but mind to keep your powder 
dry." 

It has twenty-six deep windows, which have been 
renewed several times. Its frame is of massive oak 
construction. Its interior has been changed by 
removing the galleries, and by putting in a floor, 
making two stories. 

Only two other church edifices in the State can 
vie with it in point of age and use. One of these 
is "The Old Ship," so-called, at Hingham. The other 
is St. Michael's (Episcopalian) of Marblehead. The 
latter was built in the same year as our North 
Precinct meeting-house. 

This building has a unique interest to the people 
of Lynn. It not only has been a church edifice for 
all these years, but it is the building wherein the 
civil affairs of the district, precinct and Town of 
Lynnfield were transacted down to 1892, when the 
new Town Hall was dedicated. 

It is without question the most historic building 
within the limits of the original Town of Lynn. It 
is older than the Old South meeting-house, Faneuil 
Hall, or King's Chapel, of Boston. From roof to 
foundation stones it is sound, and can be maintained 
for many coming generations as a cherished memento 
of the strong race which in travail brought forth a 
great nation. 

The illustration is from a photograph taken in 
August, 1898. 

For further description of this building reference 

113 



Hearths and Homes 

may be had to " Wellman's History of Lynnfield," to 
a paper read by Mrs. Mary A. Parsons before the 
Lynn Historical Society, May 11, 1899, entitled "A 
Trip to Lynn Farms," and an address entitled " Why 
the Old Town House Was Built," prepared by the 
writer for the Dedicatory Exercises of the New 
Town Hall, January 28, 1892, and reprinted in this 
book. 



114 






THE MEETING-HOUSE OF THE THIRD 
PARISH IN LYNN. 




HAT is now the Town of Lynnfield constituted 
the North or Second Parish of Lynn up to 
1782. In that year Lynnfield was set off 
from the town as a district. Subsequently the 
Saugus Parish was known as the Second Parish of 
Lynn instead of the Third. 

" The Society of Proprietors of the new Meeting- 
house in the Western end of the Town of Lynn " was 
the name of what later became the Meeting-house 
of the Third Parish of Lynn. 

It was built by the people of the west end of the 
town as proprietors, because the First Parish suc- 
cessfully opposed the setting up of a new parish. 

The same arguments were used as in the case of 
the North or Lynnfield Parish, namely, distance and 
inconvenience of traveling down to worship in the 
old Parish meeting-house on the Common. 

The movement to secure a separate place of wor- 
ship took definite form when William Taylor, on 
July 1, 1736, conveyed to Thomas Cheever, Jonathan 
Waite and John Waite a parcel of land " for divers 
good causes and considerations, but more especially 
to encourage the building of a meeting-house for the 
public worship of God," which includes what is now 

115 



Hearths and Homes 

the public square whereon stands the Soldiers' Monu- 
ment in Saugus Centre and the old burying-ground 
lying to the west. 

William Taylor was a prominent citizen of the place, 
the son of James Taylor, who for many years was 
the Treasurer of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. 

Through the marriage of William Taylor's daugh- 
ter, Anna, to Benjamin Parker, his blood and his 
influence has ever since been potent in the affairs 
of the Parish and Town of Saugus. 

The building, which still stands, though degraded 
in use and removed across the road to the north, 
stood upon what was then a little knoll. It was 
forty-five feet six inches in length by thirty-five feet 
eight inches in width with posts twenty feet in 
height. It had three doors, two of which opened 
directly into the room of worship, while on the south 
side was the main door with a large porch, into which 
were three entrances. When finally abandoned as 
a church edifice there was a single entrance at the 
west end. It had galleries and sounding board, but 
never had a steeple or cupola, and was as plain and 
austere and homely as all the Puritan meeting-houses 
were. The building was completed in 1737. 

The proprietors organized under a general law of 
the Province, authorizing the owners of lands held 
in common to form themselves into an association. 
By so associating they could govern themselves sub- 
stantially in the same manner as a parish. 

The General Court gave them a share of the income 
of the First Parish "to maintain preaching among 

116 



of Old Lynn 

themselves during the more difficult seasons of the 
year." 

In 1738, Edward Cheever, a graduate of Harvard 
of 1737, then twenty-one years of age, a resident of 
the West End, became the first minister of the con- 
gregation and the only minister of the proprietors 
as distinct from the later organized parish. 

After a struggle of twelve years, on January 27, 
1749-50, a joint committee of the General Court 
reported in favor of the new Parish. 

At the first meeting of the Parish, February 2, 
1750, it was voted " That the Parish did concur with 
the church and made choice of Mr. Joseph Roby to 
be settled in the work of the ministry in said Parish." 

Thereafter, for the period of fifty-two years, Par- 
son Roby faithfully and efficiently served the Parish 
and church as minister and friend. He died January 
31, 1803, and his name and quaint-marked tombstone 
may be seen in the old burying-ground across the way. 

Like so many of the old Puritan churches, this one 
was a storm centre of the ecclesiastical duels of the 
first half of the nineteenth century. The Universal- 
ists won in the end, and occupied it until 1860, when 
it was sold and removed to its present site. 

Whoever seeks to know more of the house may be 
referred to the exhaustive and sympathetic " Histor- 
ical Address upon the Third Church in Lynn," deliv- 
ered by Benjamin N. Johnson at its one hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary, October 13, 1887. 



117 



THE PURITAN BIRTHRIGHT. 




HE Puritans of the seventeenth century were 
the most earnest and intelligently devout 
people the world had then or has since 
known. Their study of the Mosaic law was more 
profound and obedience to the inspiration from 
Mount Sinai more literal than that of the Israelites 
themselves. One of the most graphic pictures in 
the account of the patriarchs is the story of the sale 
of Esau's birthright to his younger brother Jacob. 
The Puritan first-born also had a birthright, but, 
unlike the son of Isaac, he clung to it tenaciously. 

The Puritans took the Bible for their law and their 
gospel, but they had in them all the Saxon's love 
for land and the Norman's passion for mastership. 
They rejected the feudal custom which the Norman 
conquest of England brought into vogue, whereby 
the first-born male of a family inherited lands under 
what we know as primogeniture. But they did not 
go back to the old Saxon Gavelkind which prevailed 
before the Conquest, under which all children shared 
alike. They made a compromise. They provided 
for all their children, but strove to maintain head- 
ship in the family — to keep the fire burning upon 
the family altar by a curious contrivance. They 
adopted a scheme of property succession which 

119 



Hearths and Homes 

seemed to have something of the Saxon, all children 
sharing alike, and something of the Norman feudal, 
which gave all to the eldest son. The Puritans fol- 
lowed neither one nor the other. Upon the plains 
of Judea, among that peculiar people in whose behalf 
the Deity was believed to have special interest, they 
found their exemplar. In the plan of Moses the 
tribal or clan relation was paramount. The family 
and not the individual was the unit. Hence, while 
each child had his portion, as is shown in the parable 
of the Prodigal Son, yet the eldest son had his 
birthright. In the same parable, when the elder son 
murmured at the rejoicings over the return of the 
Prodigal, the father wisely replied, "Son, thou art 
ever with me, and all I have is thine." So the Puri- 
tans gave the eldest son a birthright, that is, a double 
portion. Like the children of Israel, the English 
Puritans in their exodus took with them to Massa- 
chusetts Bay wives and children, flocks and herds. 
Heedless of the clash of arms in the mother-country, 
they went to work to formulate laws for the new 
world, in which work their successors have been 
fruitful even to this day. The laws, just one hun- 
dred in number, bear in their margin, in many cases, 
reference to Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, 
upon which they were based. They are entitled 
"The Body of Liberties of 1641." 

By the eighty-first paragraph of the Body of 
Liberties of 1641, it was provided that " when parents 
dye intestate, the Elder sonne shall have a doble 
portion of his whole estate, reall and personall, 

120 



of Old Lynn 

unlesse the Generall Court upon just reason shall 
Judge otherwise." The Code of 1660 re-enacted this 
provision in somewhat modernized spelling : " Pro- 
vided, the eldest sonn shall have a Double Portion, 
and where there are no sonns, the daughters shall 
inherit as Copartners, unless the Court upon just 
Cause alledged, shall otherwise Determine." 

Under the provincial charter of William and Mary, 
the General Court by an act passed November 1, 
1692, entitled " An act for the settling and distribu- 
tion of the estates of intestates," reaffirms this prin- 
ciple in these words : " . . . the estate of all to be 
equal, except the eldest son then surviving (where 
there is no issue of the first born or of any other 
elder son), who shall have two shares, or a double 
portion of the whole : and where there are no sons, 
the daughters shall inherit as copartners. ..." How 
like the last clause is the command of Israel's inspired 
lawgiver upon the same subject (Numbers xxvii : 8) : 
"And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, 
saying, If a man die and have no son then ye shall 
cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter." 
The preamble to Chapter 14 of the Province Laws, 
1692-93, reveals something of the hardships of pioneer 
life and tender solicitude for the welfare of children : 
"Whereas, estates in these plantations do consist 
chiefly of lands which have been subdued and brought 
to improvement by the industry and labour of the 
proprietors, with the assistance of their children, the 
younger children generally having been longest and 
most serviceable unto their parents in that behalf, 

121 



Hearths and Homes 

who have not personal estates to give out unto them 
in portions, or otherwise to recompense their labour." 

The eldest son's family did not lose his double 
portion or birthright, even if he died before his 
father. His issue inherited his share, but in the 
event of the estate being incapable of division, as 
was often the case, the next eldest son took the 
homestead, paying to the other heirs such an amount 
in cash, "corn," or "cattle " as a committee of neigh- 
bors, "three sufficient householders," should deter- 
mine to be equitable. The principle seems to have 
been to keep the homestead in the possession of the 
oldest living male of the family name, he being pre- 
sumably the best able to maintain the family stand- 
ing and traditions. 

Not even the American Revolution, when the glit- 
tering French catchwords, "liberty, equality, and 
fraternity," were so popular, sufficed to effect a 
change immediately. After the war with England 
was over, and three years after the adoption of the 
State Constitution, the Legislature of Massachusetts 
enacted by Statute of 1783, chapter 36, paragraph 1, 
"that land should descend equally among children, 
and such as legally represent them, except that the 
eldest son should have two shares." So that the 
Puritan birthright was re-enacted by the Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts. This exception was abro- 
gated by Statute of 1789, chapter 2, which went into 
operation on the first of January, 1790 ; and from 
and after that time all children took in equal shares 
without regard to sex or primogeniture. 

122 



of Old Lynn 

In the vacation months of each year numerous 
family reunions take place throughout New England. 
They are occasions of much enjoyment. People from 
far and near flock to the old homestead, and they 
talk genealogy, even as the Israelites did of old. It 
is rank heresy to so much as question the declaration 
that all men are born free and equal, but God's 
chosen people of the Scriptures and our Puritan 
ancestors did not believe in it at all. May we not 
ask if, in spite of all the vast benefits that have come 
to our race by the American Revolution, we did not 
lose something of the sacredness of home and family 
ties when we abandoned the patriarchal headship and 
adopted the Procrustean scheme for making all men 
equal? Would not more of these old homesteads 
have been retained, would not more ancestral hearth- 
fires have been kept burning, had the Puritan idea 
been allowed to prevail instead of the carving and 
leveling-down scheme? 

The decadence of the hill towns and the abandon- 
ment of the old homesteads that were their crowning 
glory afford themes for much discussion. Not until 
after the abrogation of the Puritan family headship 
did attachment to the soil fail or the number of 
children in native families begin to grow less. So 
long as the family looked forward to a chosen one 
as the presumptive care-taker of the old home, all 
went well. The one whom nature and custom had 
selected to maintain the family honor and guard the 
accumulating heirlooms had an incentive to make 
the place really a family centre, an attractive object 

123 



Hearths and Homes 

for an annual pilgrimage. The younger brethren 
were taught early the necessity for learning useful 
trades, and as the country grew they went into busi- 
ness. They were imbued with reverence for the old 
home, and all knew that its best chamber, the fattest 
turkey, the choicest products of the yeoman master, 
were reserved for those who wandered into town life, 
but whose feet homeward turned for the annual 
Thanksgiving, the New England family festival. 

It is just one hundred years 1 since the Puritan first- 
born lost (by statute) his birthright — his first claim 
upon the home of his fathers. At about the same 
time he took to trade and commerce and then to 
manufactures. His children are now the merchant 
princes of the land. With all the material success 
which has attended the diversion from the patri- 
archal system there is a shadow. Where are the 
homely homes of the fathers? Why are strangers 
sitting in their gates, who know not the children of 
the men who built them on the verdant hillsides and 
gave the healthful impetus which sent forth into the 
world so many with strong brains to win in every 
field of endeavor? 

With wealth and refinement the longings to tread 
in the footprints of the fathers are not lost. There 
is much lamentation over the abandoned farms of 
New England, but there will be found sentiment 
enough in the men in whose veins runs the blood of 
the pioneers to restore to them their ancient home- 

1 This was written in 1890. 

124 



of Old Lynn 

likeness without calling upon aliens to come and 
possess. 

We cannot in this radical age re-enact the Puritan 
birthright. We may be permitted to allude to it as 
a system under which the race thrived. Under the 
apparent materialism of the well-to-do descendants 
of the Puritans there is an ingrained attachment to 
the soil and to family, which will yet recover every 
one of those dear old homesteads. There may not 
be in the future a legal birthright, yet the birthright 
of memory, tradition and reverence will not be sold 
like Esau's, but tenderly guarded with the fathers' 
blessing. 



125 



PART II 
Hearths and Homes of Old Lynn 



STUDIES IN LOCAL HISTORY 



A CHAPTER IN THE STORY OF THE IRON 

WORKS. 1 




MIDWAY between Salem and Boston, the first 
and second capitals of Massachusetts, there 
flows a serpentine little stream, called the 
Abousett by the Indians and the Saugus by their 
English successors. From an elevation it resembles 
a string of "upper-case" letter S's. Tide water 
meets the down-flowing fresh water two miles from 
the bay, between Round Hill on the west and the 
dark forest on the east. Just where the currents 
lap each other, on the bank of the stream, is a long 
sloping mound like a sea-serpent's back, which to the 
passer-by seems but a freak of nature. The hand of 
man, however, wrought that earth-work. At this 
point was the fording place crossed in the early 
days by Endicott and Winthrop, and all the Puritan 
worthies in the infancy of New England. 

The mound which lies at this point upon the river 
bank, and is known to the natives as "the Cinder 
Banks," is the heapecl-up scoria — the refuse, the 
remainder — the sweepings of an iron foundry, which 
was in full blast before the red man had cast his 
last lingering look upon his beloved river and upon 

1 Lynn Historical Society, February 7, 1902. 

129 



Hearths and Homes 

the blue waters of the Atlantic beyond. The fleecy 
snows have mantled it, the sun has scorched it for 
two centuries, and only an occasional curious observer 
has disturbed its scanty covering of vegetation for 
some relic of the first manufacturing industry of the 
continent. A surpassingly beautiful picture rewards 
the lover of Nature who ascends the " pirates' look- 
out " on the opposite side of the stream. Glancing 
down the lazy waters, in the foreground lie the 
Nahants and Egg Rock, like fair nymphs arising from 
the sea ; near at hand are green forests and nestling 
hamlets ; to the right the eye catches the glittering 
dome of the State House ; beyond it the famed Blue 
Hills of Milton ; and far away on the left, almost 
mingling with the horizon, are the cliffs of Cape Ann. 

Verily, there is nothing new under the sun in the 
laws of Nature or of trade. The present large im- 
petus of English capital into this country only marks 
afresh the movement that has existed since the very 
beginnings of the western continent. There is some- 
thing stimulating in the contact of an old race with 
a new soil. English capital was seeking investments 
when the Puritans took possession of Massachusetts 
Bay. In this marvelous age of iron it will be inter- 
esting to note a few incidents in the history of the 
first iron works in America. 

In the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society for October, 1892, a diary of John Winthrop, 
Jr., with four other papers, bearing upon the estab- 
lishment of the Iron Works and edited by Robert C. 
Winthrop, Jr., are printed. 

130 



of Old Lynn 

The diary covers parts of November and December, 
1645, and relates a trip through Massachusetts south 
from Boston — through Braintree among other places 
— Rhode Island and Connecticut. 

R. C. Winthrop, Jr., says of the first of the manu- 
scripts which follow the diary : — 

" The first of them is a rough draft (without date, 
but probably written in the spring of 1644), in which 
John Winthrop, Jr., narrates his search through 
Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts for the 
fittest place in which to establish the iron industry, 
and he gives at length his reasons for preferring 
Braintree." 

Of the third paper he says : — 

" The third is a letter to Winthrop, from his asso- 
ciates in London, in June, 1645, introducing Richard 
Leader, whom they were sending out to superintend 
the works." 

In the notes upon this diary the learned editor 
says : — 

" Early in 1644 the Massachusetts General Court 
had granted 3,000 acres of common land at Braintree 
to John Winthrop, Jr., and others, for the encourage- 
ment of an iron work to be set up about Monatocot 
River." 

By the Records the only grants made to John 
Winthrop, Jr., during 1644 were, first :— 

"Upon the petition of Mr. John Winthrop, Jr., 
exhibited to this Court, for leave to make a planta- 

131 



Hearths and Homes 

tion at or near Pequott, it is ordered, that the said 
petition is granted, & that the petitioner shall have 
liberty to make a plantation in the said Pequott coun- 
try, with such others as shall present themselves to 
join in the said plantation, & they shall enjoy such 
liberties as are necessary, & other far remote planta- 
tions do enjoy, and also to lay out a convenient place 
for iron works, provided, that a convenient number 
of fit persons to carry on the said plantation do 
appear to prosecute the same within three years. 
Dated the 28th of the 4th mo., 1644." 

The second grant was under date November 13, 
1644 : - 

"Mr. John Winthrop, Jr., is granted the hill at 
Tautousq, about 60 miles westward, in which the 
black lead is, and liberty to purchase some land there 
of the Indians." 

The only other grant to John Winthrop, Jr., near 
this time was dated May 10, 1648, and relates to him 
as a prospector of salt mines, instead of iron works, 
and the land was in the territory conquered from the 
Indians far from Braintree :— 

" The Court hath agreed that 3,000 acres of land 
shall be granted to John Winthrop, Junior, of the 
Pequot land, at Paquatuck, near to the Narraganset 
country ; provided, that if he set not up a consider- 
able salt work — we mean to make one hundred ton per 
annum of salt, between the two capes of Massachusetts 
Bay within three years now next coming, — then this 
grant to be void ; provided, also, that the said land 
fall within the division of the part of the Pequod 

132 



of Old Lynn 

country belonging to this jurisdiction, provided the 
3,000 acres be laid out together in one place, & the 
former agreement with him in the country's behalf 
is hereby repealed." 

Early and late writers upon the first Iron Works 
in America discuss the matter as if there was a 
dispute as to the priority between Lynn and Brain- 
tree. It may be worth while to give some chrono- 
logical and other data. 

A memorandum made in "The Records of the 
Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in 
New England," under date of March 2, 1628-29, 
while preparations were making in England for the 
planting of the colony, is indicative of a purpose and 
is the first mention of the iron works question. It is 
as follows : — 

"Also for Mr. Malbon, it was propounded, he 
having skyll in iron works and willing to put in £25 
in stock, it should be accepted as £50 and his charges 
to be borne out and home for New England ; and 
upon his return and report what may be done about 
iron works, consideration to be had of proceeding 
therein accordingly, and further recompense if there 
be cause to entertain him." 

John Malbon's name appears a few days later on 
the records, when he desired to be present for a 
conference with regard to his proposition, and we 
hear no more from him. 

Evidently he failed to agree with the company and 
did not adventure with the Colonists. 

133 



Hearths and Homes 

There is no occasion to get into a controversy as 
to which was first, the egg or the hen — Lynn or 
Braintree. 

The historical writers were not careful enough in 
reading the recorded facts relating to the under- 
taking — hence a seeming not real question as to the 
priority between the two places. 

James Savage, the erudite editor of Governor 
Winthrop's history, says in a note, Vol. 2, page 214 : — 

" Johnson Lib. III., C. 6, takes notice of the invest- 
ment by the English undertakers in the work at 
Braintree, but though more full, he is little more 
satisfactory than Mr. Hubbard. Neither of these 
writers mentions but one place, so that from Hubbard 
we should learn nothing of Braintree forge, nor from 
Johnson of Lynn. From some powers of attorney 
given in by the London undertakers, preserved in 
the Suffolk Registry, Vol. 3, 155, I find the interest 
was the same in both places." 

This note of Mr. Savage gives a key to the mystery. 

So far as the records and the evidence go the 
scheme to make iron in the Colony remained quies- 
cent till 1642. From that time there was a lively 
agitation. 

Readers of the Colonial Records and of the Suffolk 
Deeds will readily ascertain that there was only one 
company of undertakers for the Iron Works and that 
was the London Company interested by the efforts of 
Capt. Robert Bridges of Lynn and John Winthrop, Jr. 

In a note, Vol. 2, page 237, Winthrop's History, 
Savage says of Capt. Robert Bridges : — 

134 



of Old Lynn 

" Johnson lib. Ill c. 26 speaks of his ability and 
good disposition to serve the public. He was a free- 
man 2 June 1641, went home next year but came 
again I find in 1643, with J. Winthrop, Jr., and in 
the three following years was a deputy for Lynn. 
Having served in 1646 as Speaker, he was elevated 
to the rank of Assistant next year, and continued in 
the office till his death in 1656. Probably the inter- 
est in the iron works, with which he was inspired 
by Winthrop, was the cause of his coming to our 
country." 

The General Court of the Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay in New England on March 7, 1643-44, pursuant 
to its liberal policy in aiding schemes for the growth 
of new industries answered certain questions of the 
Iron Works Company. 

To the first proposition of the company the Court 
responded by granting a Monopoly of Manufacture 
for twenty-one years. 

To the fifth proposition, which was if waste places 
would be granted, the Court replied : — 

" It is granted, provided they take not above six 
places, and do within ten years set up an iron fur- 
nace forge in each of the places and not a bloomery 
only, provided the Court may grant a plantation in 
any place where the Court thinketh meet, which may 
not hinder their present proceeding. 

Capt. Edward Johnson, of Woburn, wrote a book 
which purported to be " A History of New England, 
from the English Planting in the yeare 1628 until 
the yeare 1652." It was first published anonymously 

135 



Hearths and Homes 

in London in 1654. It is better known to bibliograph- 
ers under the title, " Wonder- Working Providence of 
Sion's Saviour in New England." Johnson's book 
was the result of journeys through the Colony and 
consists largely of the planting of the churches with 
descriptions of the industries and ways of living of 
the people. In his account of Lynn he says : — 

"There is also an Iron Mill in constant use, but as 
for Lead they have tried but little yet." 

So that Mr. Savage was in error, and Johnson had 
discovered the doings at Lynn. 

Goodwin in "The Pilgrim Republic," page 527, 
says : — 

"In 1645 Iron Works were set up at Lynn, but 
were soon closed through the reasonable fear of the 
people that the demand for charcoal would consume 
the scanty supply of wood." 

Another trial was made at Braintree, and in 1646 
Dr. Child there produced some tons of cast-iron 
"pots, mortars, stoves and skillets." 

The latest writer of the story of the planting, Daniel 
Wait Howe, in his book, "The Puritan Republic," in 
the chapter on Industrial and Commercial Life, page 
133, says : — 

" A pottery was established at Salem in 1641 and 
iron works at Lynn in 1643, but the latter were 
abandoned." 

Dr. W. S. Pattee, in his history of Braintree, in the 
chapter on Iron Works, page 460, says : — 

136 



of Old Lynn 

"The greater part of the capital and principal 
business was at Lynn, as at the time of the failure 
of the iron company the apprizements of their estate 
at Lynn amounted to £3,295 2s. 6d. and at Braintree 
£666 3s. 3d." 

We may add that it appears by Suffolk Deeds 
Liber II., pages 265 to 272, that the judgment cred- 
itors, they being Robert Burgis, Nicholas Potter, John 
Tarbox, Joseph Mansfield, John Hawthorne, Edward 
Baker, Daniel Salmon, Thomas Wiggins, William 
Tingle, John Hill, and Joseph Armitage were all of 
Lynn. 

All the judgments were had at the Salem Court. 
Under the executions there issued the defendants 
are named as " Mr. John Bee & Company, under- 
takers of the Iron Workes at Lynne." 

One parcel levied upon is described " by grant from 
the Towne of Boston was seized of Two thousand 
eight hundred & Sixty acres of land at Braintry." 

Other property of the company was levied upon in 
Boston and in Lynn, but the citations given above 
plainly show that though the company had lands in 
different localities as allowed by the General Court, 
the seat, the centre, of the Works was at Lynn. 

Dr. Pattee, page 457, says : — 

" It is useless for us to go over the extensive field 
of controversy in reference to whether Lynn or 
Braintree erected the first iron forge in America. It 
is of little moment to us whether Lynn or Braintree 
began their works one or six months previous to the 
other, as they were one and the same company, and 

137 



Hearths and Homes 

most probably their works established as near together 
as the nature of the circumstances would admit. We 
are, however, of an opinion that the evidence pre- 
dominates to Lynn. Still, it is an open question, and 
we think will ever remain as such." 

Dr. Pattee goes on to say : — 

" The first branch forge and furnace, for the manu- 
facture of iron ware in America (as it was one branch, 
the other having been built at Lynn by the same 
company), was constructed in that part of Braintree 
which is now called Quincy, on what has ever been 
known as Furnace brook." 

And ever since, the Braintree writers have disputed 
as to where their forge was. That is their contro- 
versy, not ours. We know where our pond, canal, 
works and forge were. 

The grant of nearly 3,000 acres in Braintree was 
made by the Town of Boston of its common lands to 
the Iron Works Company, and was recorded in Suffolk 
Deeds, Liber I, page 73. This conveyance was con- 
firmed by the Selectmen of Boston on the 23d of 
9 month, 1647. 

One conveyance to the Company of Undertakers 
of the Iron Works, or to Richard Leader, agent, of 
land in Braintree, was the first recorded transaction, 
as appears in Suffolk Deeds, Liber I, page 62. This 
was the George Ruggles land, and the conveyance 
was dated September 29, 1645. 

It may be of interest to copy another instrument 
which antedates the others and gives a description 
of the land where the great iron works experiment 

138 



of Old Lynn 

was substantially tried by Leader and Bridges, and 
later by John Gifford : — 

" Thomas Dexter, of Linne, granted unto Richard 
Leader of Boston, Mercht. Agent for a certaine Com- 
pany of Undertakers for an Iron works & in their 
behalf (in consideration of XXXX£ sterl. in hand 
payd.) All that parcell of land neere adjacent to 
the Grantors house, wch shall necessarily be over- 
flowed by reason of a pond of water there intended 
to be stopped unto the height agreed on betwixt 
them, and also convenient land & sufficient for a 
water course intended to be erected together with 
the land lyeing betweene the ould water course & 
the new one. As also fyve Acres & halfe in the 
Cornefield next the Grantors house & most convenient 
for the uses intended, & twoe convenient Cart wayes, 
one on the one syde of the bargained premises, & 
another on the other syde thereof. And this was an 
absolute deed of sale with clause of warranty ; And 
the said Rich. Leader, in behalfe of his principalis, 
did grant that all the purchased premises in conven- 
ient season be fenced from the Grantors lands with 
a sufficient fence to be made & maintained for ever 
at the charge of the said Company of Undertakers, 
as also to make & maintaine towards Capt. Bridges 
house, & one at the out bounds of Tho. Dexters land 
goeing to the Towne Comon, & to make & maintaine 
a sufficient Cart bridge over the said water course 
out of the lands of the Grantor through some part 
of the purchased premisses unto the other part of 
his [71.] Lands to his use & benefit ; & yearely for- 
ever, throughout the second & third months to allow 
sufficient water in the ould River for the Alewives 
to come to the wyres before the Grantors house. 
And what soever trespass shallbe done by any beast 

139 



Hearths and Homes 

estrayeing through the said Gates or fences, in the 
Grantors Corne fields, the said Grantee for himself 
& principalis doth covenant to make good unto the 
Grantor uppon Just Demand." 

And this was by Indenture of sale, dated XXVII 
of the Xlth month, 1645. And acknowledged before 
Mr. Endicot VJth 1°, 1645. 

[Suffolk Liber 1, 70, 71]. 

Wherever the Iron Works are mentioned, as for 
example, in a conveyance from Joseph Armitage, of 
Lynn, to Captain Thomas Savage, Suffolk Deeds, 
Liber 3, page 3, they are described as "ye Iron 
Workes at Lynne and Braintry." In the same vol- 
ume, pages 137 and 138, is a release from William 
Payne to Henry Webb, of interest in the Iron Works 
in New England, in which the property is described 
as at Lynn and Braintree in New England, showing 
that though the company had liberty to take land in 
other places these two were the only ones taken. 

At the time of Paine's death he was owner of 
three-fourths of the title in common with others, 
the whole being under the supervision of Oliver 
Purchess. By his will he gave this interest to his 
son John, adding the following clause : " And I do 
hereby earnestly request Mr. Oliver Purchis to be 
helpful to my son John concerning the Iron Works 
and the accounts thereof, whose abilities and faith- 
fulness I have had experience of, into whose care 
I do commit the said accounts." The title subse- 
quently passed from John to Mr. Appleton, though 
not till after a long lawsuit. 

140 



of Old Lynn 

Under date of 1678, Mr. Lewis writes : - 

" This year, Samuel Appleton, Jr., took possession 
of the Iron Works by a grant in the will of William 
Payne, of Boston." 

Mr. Lewis and the author of the Paine Genealogy 
do not agree, and these differing statements are a 
fair sample of the difficulties that beset those who 
in local history look for accuracy. 

In 1651, Richard Leader, agent of the Iron Works 
Company, had proved himself persona non grata to 
Governor Endicott, the General Court and the church 
at Lynn. He went home, and John Gifford succeeded 
him as agent for the undertakers. From thence, on, 
the Colony Records teem with what the side notes 
call " Iron Works disputes." 

In 1654, Mr. Gifford appears to have been at odds 
with the company. Noted names appear in the pro- 
ceedings. On September 20 of that year, " Captain 
Keane (Robert Keayne) and Mr. Edward Hutchinson, 
attorney for Mr. Josiah Winslow, deputies and attor- 
neys for the undertakers of the iron works, plaintiff, 
and Mr. John Gifford, late agent to the undertakers 
of the iron works, defendant," appear before the 
General Court, which undertakes to solve many ques- 
tions, such as whether Gifford was agent of the 
company — his liability to the company. 

Richard Bellingham was Governor of the Colony. 
Increase Nowell was the first assistant, and the 
Court had to pass upon their right to vote in the 

141 



Hearths and Homes 

case, showing an opinion on the part of the members 
that they were not disinterested. 

John Gifford, on the whole, was the Englishman 
most closely connected with the Iron Works, who 
lived and died in Lynn. As agent of the London 
Company he had a checkered career, and after the 
stress of iron works troubles was over, he bought a 
farm and water privilege higher up Saugus River 
and continued the Iron Works on his own account at 
what is now Howlett's Mill Pond in North Saugus. 
His house was where the Butterfield house is to-day, 
under the shadow (unless the railroad people have 
destroyed them) of the great trees on the way to 
Wakefield. 

Gifford's life deserves more notice from local his- 
torians than can be given here. He cast his lot with 
us, and his descendants are numerous in Lynn and 
Essex County. Among the papers recorded in Suffolk 
Deeds, Liber 3, page 155, is a power of attorney, ac- 
knowledged before " Sir Robert Tichborne, Knight, 
Lord Mayor of the Cittie of London & the Aldermen 
or Senators of said Cittie," in which he is described 
as John Gifford, of the Parish of Allhallowes Barking, 
London, merchant, aged thirty-four years or there- 
abouts. This paper was executed at the Guild Hall, 
of London, on the first day of September, 1657. 

On November 28, 1654, the creditors named else- 
where obtained judgment against the Iron Works 
Company, and levied upon all the property of the 
concern. Curiously enough, these judgments were 
had before Capt. Robert Bridges, whose close con- 

142 






of Old Lynn 

nection with the affairs of the company would in 
modern days have debarred him from sitting in the 
cases. 

Within a year, or about January, 1655, all the cred- 
itors had sold their interest in the seized property to 
Capt. Thomas Savage, of Boston, a Colonial dignitary 
and a member of the General Court. (See Suffolk 
Deeds, Liber 2, pages 265 to 272.) 

In 1657 the adventurers were plainly of opinion 
that they had been deluded by the people of the 
Colony as to the doings of Mr. Gifford. The other 
adventurers made a power of attorney to one of 
their number, John Becx. An indenture was signed 
August 25, 1657, to which the parties were John 
Becx, representing the London Company, and John 
Gifford. We may make extracts from this old-time 
paper to show how fully Gifford had regained the 
confidence of the company. At this time, owing to 
mismanagement, or misfortune, the property or its 
title had passed into the hands of Captain Savage : — 

" Whereas, the actings and proceedings of the said 
John Gifford, who was formerly employed and auth- 
orized by the said John Becx and divers other, the 
said adventurers and co-partners touching and con- 
cerning the said Iron Works in New England afore- 
said, were by certain persons there then inhabiting 
misrepresented unto the said John Becx and them 
the said adventurers who giving credit there unto 
were seduced and thereby induced to countermand 
his further agency in and concerning the premises, 
and thereupon to impower, intrust and imploy cer- 
tain persons of New England, namely, Capt. Robert 

143 



Hearths and Homes 

Bridges, of Lynn, Capt. William Ting, of Boston, 
Henry Webb and Joshua Foote, of the same, and 
afterwards Capt. Robert Keayne, and Josias Winslow, 
of Boston, aforesaid in New England deputies and 
attorneys for and on the behalf of the said John Becx 
and other the said adventurers and copartners touch- 
ing the premises, who did not pursue the directions 
to them the said deputies and attorneys in and by 
ye several writings or letters of attorney to them in 
yt behalf given and granted, which tended to the 
great prejudice and damage of the said adventurers, 
and copartners in their interests and estates, in and 
to the premises. Now this indenture witnesseth that 
the said John Becx as well by force and virtue, of 
the said recited writing and letter of attorney, and 
the power therein to him in that behalf granted as 
aforesaid, or other wise upon his own interest doth 
by these presents for and on the behalf of himself, 
and the said other adventurers and copartners utterly 
revoke make null and void the said writing or letter 
or letters of attorney, formerly made or granted 
touching or concerning the said Iron Works to them 
the said Capt. Robert Bridges, Capt. Robert Ting, 
Henry Webb, Joshua Foote, Capt. Robert Keayne, 
and Josias Winslow or any of them or to any other 
person or persons other than to the said John Gifford, 
and thereupon the said John Becx, by virtue of the 
said power and authority to him granted as afore- 
said, hath again intrusted, constituted, authorized, 
deputed, and made, and by these presents doth in- 
trust, constitute, authorize, depute and make the 
said John Gifford, his lawful agent factor attorney 
and assignee as well for him the said John Becx, as 
for and on the behalf of other ye adventurers and 
copartners, aforesaid by all due and legal ways and 
means to enter into and upon the said Iron Works, 
iron mines, lands, woods, houses, edifices, and build- 

144 



of Old Lynn 

ings with the appurtenances thereunto belonging, 
and to question, examine and to call to account all 
and all manner of person and persons whatsoever, 
who now are or have been any wayes heretofore 
employed, intrusted, interested or related, in unto or 
concerning ye premises or had or have the custody 
or possession of any the iron, iron ore, money, debts, 
stock or store of cattle, coal, wood, lands, houses, 
buildings, and other ye good instruments, commodi- 
ties, materials or things whatsoever, of or belonging 
to the same or any part thereof, and the same prem- 
ises and every or any part thereof ; to receive and 
take into his hands government regulation and dis- 
posals, for and unto the proper use, benefit and 
behoof of the said John Becx, and others the said 
adventurers and copartners, and further to audite, 
rectify, settle, conclude, and finish all reckonings 
accounts, and dealings depending or pretended to 
be between the said John Becx and other the said 
adventurers and co-partners on the one part and 
such other person or persons in New England afore- 
said or elsewhere, on the other part, as are in any 
wise concerned in the premises. And further the 
said John Becx doth by these presents, for himself 
and the said other adventurers and copartners, give 
and grant to the said John Gifford full power and 
authority all and every ye person and persons, with- 
olding or detaining of the said goods and premises, 
and denying upon demand, to make delivery thereof 
or any part thereof, unto the said John Gifford, for 
him the said John Becx, and in his name and in ye 
name or names of all or any, or as many of the said 
adventurers and copartners as shall be thought fit, 
to arrest, attach, sue, impead, imprison, condemn, 
and out of prison to deliver, release, acquaint, and 
discharge by writing or otherwise." 

[See Suffolk Deeds, Liber 3, pages 159 and 160.] 

145 



Hearths and Homes 

As if it were not enough for Gifford himself to be 
in hot water all the time, his wife Margaret, an 
estimable woman, was complained of by Dr. Philip 
Read, of Lynn, as being a witch. 

The complainant said, " he verily believed that she 
was a witch, for there were some things which could 
not be accounted for by natural causes." Mrs. Gif- 
ford gave no regard to her summons, and the Court 
very prudently suspended their inquiries. 

The time had not come for the madness of 1692, 
which was prolific of individual misery. Yet to the 
credit of Massachusetts let it be said that here was 
broken the spell of demonology which had up to that 
time held in chains the whole Christian world. 

Gifford seems to have been a scapegoat for the 
sins of people whom the authorities of the Colony 
could not reach, even beyond the biblical account 
(Leviticus 16 : 10), for after he had escaped to the 
wilderness of the upper Saugus he was persecuted 
and prosecuted and imprisoned for the obligations 
of the company. He was released from imprison- 
ment by the General Court in May, 1656, at the 
request of the London undertakers. Many years 
later, October 15, 1684, he presented to the Court 
a petition relating that "he hath now been a prisoner 
upon execution fower yeares and seven months " in a 
matter in which the principals were dead and the 
attorney declined further interference, whereupon 
" The court, having weighed the necessitous and 
perishing condition of the prisoner, with other con- 
siderations, doe hereby, and declare, that, unless 

140 



of Old Lynn 

sayd Walters, or some other in behalfe of sayd prin- 
cipal^ doe, within ten dayes, appear and give caution 
to the keeper for the discharge of the prisoners, and 
other necessaries for the relieife of the sayd prisoner, 
the secretary shall grant his warrant to the keeper 
for his release, he, sd Gifford paying prison ffees and 
charges then due." 

Then the name of Gifford disappears from the Col- 
ony records. Let us trust that his later years were 
serenely passed in the vale of Saugus, where he could 
watch the morning sun gild Castle Hill, while its 
evening rays were reflected in the glistening waters of 
the pond with which his life's labors were associated. 

May 25, 1700. John Cogswell, of Chebacco Parish, 
Ipswich, and his wife, Margaret (Gifford) Cogswell, 
conveyed to Timothy Wiley and Thomas Hawkes, 
that part of the farm " Lying where my honored 
father, John Gifford's iron works, stood." 

This conveyance of seventy-three acres embraced 
the Howlett's Mill property and the land which a 
generation ago was the William Edmands farm. 

March 3, 1702-3. John Cogswell and his wife, 
Margaret, conveyed the remainder of "Gifford's 
farm" to John Brintnall. This covered one hundred 
and seventy-seven acres, and was what, of late years, 
is known as the Butterfield farm, and ran up to what 
is now the boundary line of Saugus and Lynn field. 

The witnesses to the last conveyance were Moses 
Hawkes, Thomas Hawkes and Thomas Cheever. 

The deeds may be found in Essex Deeds, Book 14, 
page 54, and Book 15, page 124. 

147 



Hearths and Homes 

Various reasons are given to account for the failure 
of the enterprise, such as hostility of land owners, 
fear of using up the forests for charcoal, inadequate 
capital. But there was something else. There was 
a constant friction between the foreign and home 
management. The people of the Colony thought 
they ought to regulate affairs, and the people who 
furnished the capital inclined to think that they 
could direct the expenditure of their own money. 
Another stumbling block was the distressing fact 
that some of the agents and employees of the com- 
pany slighted their privilege of going to meeting. 



14S 




Rear View of House (Marion Street) on which the Lynn Historical 
Society Placed the Tablet Inscribed : 



"BILLY GRAY HOUSE." 

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF LIEUT. GOV. 
WILLIAM GRAY, GRANDFATHER OF 
JUDGE HORACE GRAY OF THE U. S. 
SUPREME COURT. ALSO, THE RESI- 
DENCE OF DR. JOHN FLAGG, AN 
ARDENT REVOLUTIONARY PATRIOT. 
CHOSEN A MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE 
OF SAFETY IN 1775, AND RECEIVED A 
COMMISSION AS COLONEL. 



CAPTAIN ROBERT BRIDGES, 

FOUNDER OF THE FIRST IRON WORKS IN AMERICA. 




^MONG the Puritan worthies who planted the 
Colony of Massachusetts Bay and was first 
as to public service in the settlement of 
Lynn was a man known to his contemporaries, in 
the stately language of the times, as the Worshipful 
Captain Robert Bridges. His home was on the west 
bank of Saugus River, upon what is now Central 
Street in Saugus Centre, southwest from " the Cinder 
Banks." His years in Lynn were not many in num- 
ber, but crowded with activities public and private. 
He took the freeman's oath June 2, 1641, the form 
of which, as prescribed by the General Court as early 
as 1634, is significant of the intentions of the settlers 
from the absence of any reference to the government 
of the King. It reads as follows : — 

"I, A. B., being by God's providence an inhabitant 
and freeman within the jurisdiction of this common- 
wealth, do freely acknowledge myself to be subject 
to the government thereof, and therefore do swear 
by the great and dreadful name of the ever-living 
God that I will be true and faithful to the same, and 
will accordingly yield assistance and support there- 
unto, with my person and estate, as in equity I am 
bound, and will also truly endeavor to maintain and 

14!) 



Hearths and Homes 

preserve all the liberties and privileges thereof, sub- 
mitting myself to the wholesome laws and orders 
made and established by the same ; and further, that 
I will not plot nor practice any evil against it, nor 
consent to any that shall do so, but will timely dis- 
cover and reveal the same to lawful authority now 
here established, for the speedy preventing thereof. 
Moreover, I do solemnly bind myself, in the sight of 
God, that when I shall be called to give my voice 
touching any such matter of this state, wherein free- 
men are to deal, I will give my vote and suffrage as I 
shall judge in mine own conscience may best conduce 
and tend to the public weal of the body, without 
respect of persons or favor of any man. So help me 
God, in the Lord Jesus Christ." 



In the same year that Mr. Bridges took the oath 
he became a member of the " Ancient and Honorable 
Artillery Company," and also was made Captain of 
the Lynn Militia Company. In 1642 he went to 
London and formed the Iron Works Company, as 
related elsewhere. He returned with the younger 
Winthrop, whom he had interested in the cause. In 
1644 he became a member of the Quarterly Court at 
Salem, and was elected a Deputy to the General Court 
from Lynn — also in 1645 and 1646, in which latter 
year he was made Speaker. 

Under the Colonial Charter a very large portion of 
the governing power of the Colony was vested in a 
select and limited body of influential men, known as 
the Governor and Assistants. During the whole of 
what is called the Colonial period, from 1630 to 1692, 
Lynn was only represented in this Board by two per- 

150 



of Old Lynn 

sons. The first was John Humfrey, one of the men 
to whom the Charter was granted, who had come 
over with his wife — the daughter of the great Puri- 
tan nobleman, Earl of Lincoln — as a promoter of 
the Colony rather than as a permanent settler. After 
the success of the movement was assured he returned 
to England. Captain Bridges was chosen an Assist- 
ant in 1646, and remained in the office till his death 
in 1656. He went to the Board of Assistants directly 
from the speakership of the House of Deputies or 
Representatives. As Speaker he stands alone as the 
only Lynn man who was advanced to that honorable 
post during the Colonial period. 

John Burrill, "the beloved speaker," subsequently 
held similar positions, but his service was after the 
Puritan experiment of a free commonwealth had 
been suspended by the Charter of William and Mary, 
and Massachusetts was ruled by Governors appointed 
by the King instead of chosen by the people. Speaker 
Burrill's house, on the southern slope of Tower Hill, 
also looked out upon the river where the tides 
covered the great marshes upon its banks. 

A paper somewhat noted in our local annals, bear- 
ing the autographs of many of the first settlers, 
called the "Armitage petition," appears in Mr. 
Bridges' handwriting, and shows him to have been 
an elegant penman. The document is a prayer of 
the leading citizens : — 

" That Jane Armitage may be licensed to keep the 
ordinary, instead of her husband Joseph, whose ' la- 

151 



Hearths and Homes 

bours & indeauors have beene blasted, and his aims & 
ends frustrated by a just hand, beinge also made 
incapable of such other ymploym* as hee is personally 
fitted for by reason of the sensure vnder w ch for the 
p r sent he lyeth & alsoe being outed of such trade & 
comerce as might have afforded supportacon to his 
familie consistinge of Diuers p r sons & small Chil- 
dren in comiseracon of whom, togither with yo r 
peticonesse, the inhabitants of o 1 ' town were pleased 
(as farr as in them lay) to continue yo r poore peti- 
conesse in the Custodie of the said Ordinary, & that 
benefitt w cb might accrew from the same to take 
towards makeinge of theire Hues the more comfort- 
able ; wherevpon & by reason whereof yo r peticonesse 
said husband procured the most convenient howse in 
Lynn for the purpose albeit itt was very ruinous & 
much cost bestowed respecting^ his p'sent condicon 
in repaireinge & fittinge vp of the same accordingly.' " 

The first signers were Samuel Whiting, pastor, and 
Thomas Cobbett, teacher, of the Church of Lynn ; 
then, at a respectful distance, follow the names of 
the laymen, led by the clear signature of Robert 
Bridges. It would make a modern Board of Alder- 
men or Selectmen amazed to receive a petition for 
a tavern license signed by the clergymen of the 
place. The tavern was the old "Anchor," a noted 
hostelry for many generations down to the time 
when Landlord Jacob Newhall kept it, and occupied 
the best pew in the Third Parish Meeting-house by 
virtue of paying the largest Parish tax. If the 
saintly Whiting and the astute Bridges had lived in 
these days the whole pack of wiseacre agitators would 
have been barking at their heels. They were ac- 

152 



of Old Lynn 

counted godly and wise men in their day and genera- 
tion. Is it not possible that their conservatism and 
regulation were the fruit of deep observation of 
human nature — which human nature is about the 
same now as then? 

We know less of the manner of life of Mr. Bridges 
than of many of his contemporaries who were not 
half as influential, because he lacked certain angular 
points that marked them. We hear much about his 
neighbor, Farmer Dexter, because his temper brought 
him into trouble as a reviler of dignitaries. We are 
familiar with Bennet, because he was a common 
sleeper in meeting, and by reason of his litigation 
with the Iron Works Company. We get an idea of 
what manner of man Captain Marshall was from the 
yarns he spun about his service with Cromwell — 
which stories his guests recorded in their note-books 
and then printed. Others are pictured to us through 
family tradition. Yet we can without any of these 
aids form a fair estimate of the daily life of this 
Puritan pioneer. That he walked in straitest Puri- 
tan ways his constant service in the Board of Assist- 
ants testifies. 

Historians are fond of enlarging upon the power 
of the Puritan clergy. In one very important matter 
they had absolutely no authority. John Winthrop 
and his followers regarded marriage as a purely 
civil contract. Speaking of them Governor Hutchin- 
son says : "I suppose there had been no instance of 
a marriage lawfully celebrated by a layman in 
England when they left it. I believe there was 

153 



Hearths and Homes 

no instance of marriage by a clergyman after they 
arrived during their Charter, but the service was 
always performed by a magistrate, or by persons 
specially appointed in particular towns or districts." 
The magistrates were the Governor, the Deputy 
Governor and the Assistants. For ten years, from 
1646 to 1656, one of the functions of Mr. Bridges 
was the legalizing the union of the young people 
of Lynn in the state of matrimony. 

The Colonial statute regarding the ceremony of 
marriage was passed in the year that Captain Bridges 
became a member of the Court of Assistants. As an 
illustration of Puritan views the following is copied 
from " The Book of the General Laws and Liberty es 
concerning the Inhabitants of the Massachusets, col- 
lected out of the Records of the General Court, for 
the years wherein they were made and established," 
and printed in Cambridge in 1660 : — 

"As the Ordinance of Marriage is honourable 
amongst all, so should it be accordingly solemnized. 
It is therefore Ordered by this Court and Authority 
thereof. That no person whatsoever in this jurisdic- 
tion, shall joyne any persons together in Marriage, 
but the magistrate, or such other as the General 
Court, or Court of Assistants shal Authorize in such 
place, where no Magistrate is near. Nor shal any 
joyne themselves in marriage, but before some mag- 
istrate or person authorized as aforesaid. Nor shal 
any magistrate, or other person authorized as afore- 
said, joyne any persons together in marriage, or 
suffer them to joyne together in marriage in their 
presence, before the parties to be marryed have 
been published according to Law." 

154 



of Old Lynn 

After the death of Captain Bridges Lynn was one 
of the places described as "where no magistrate is 
near." It may seem strange to those who have been 
taught that our fathers were a stern race to learn 
that the man selected to succeed Mr. Bridges in tying 
the nuptial knot was the redoubtable Thomas Mar- 
shall, formerly parliamentary soldier, transformed 
into the jolly Boniface of the Blew Anchor. Yet he 
was thus empowered by the General Court on the 
eighteenth of October, 1659. The Records of the 
Quarterly Court also state that during the next 
month, November, " Thomas Marshall, of Lynn, is 
alowed by this Court, to sell strong water to trav- 
ellers, and also other meet provisions." Thus all 
the inhabitants of Lynn who dared the perils of 
either matrimony or of "strong water" thereafter 
applied at the door of the old tavern which has been 
so lovingly immortalized by our local historians. 

With his other accomplishments Captain Bridges 
was a skillful diplomat. From 1632 to 1654, the 
famed land of Acadia, extending from Nova Scotia 
to the cloud-covered domes of the isle of the desert 
mountains, was in possession of France. Two rival 
French governors, D'Aulnay and La Tour, fought 
for supremacy. La Tour sought aid from Massachu- 
setts. It required shrewd management to avoid 
entanglement with the crafty Frenchmen, and con- 
sequent war with the offended party. Finally in 
1645 a treaty was signed, pledging the Colonists to 
neutrality. Captain Bridges was the Massachusetts 
Commissioner. He was accompanied by Richard 

155 



Hearths and Homes 

Walker and Thomas Marshall, both valiant soldiers, 
whose homes were upon the shores of Saugus River. 
Pecuniary compensation was then exceedingly mod- 
est ; for " good services in this mission Captain 
Bridges was allowed ten pounds, Lieutenant Walker 
four pounds and Sergeant Marshall forty shillings. 
In the young Puritan Commonwealth public service 
was a duty to be freely rendered. 

Even in the present age, when the shrill whistle 
of the mammoth steamer echoes against the rock- 
ribbed headlands of Maine, and the muffled response 
of distant lighthouse bells peals mournfully across 
the sullen waters from Boone Island or Monhegan 
or Owlshead, the voyage to the Acadia of song and 
history is weird and exciting. When Robert Bridges 
and his companions skirted the grim coast in clumsy 
sailing-vessels, the only sounds that broke upon the 
ear were the flapping sails, the splash of waters cut 
by the sharp prow, or the sombre waves beating upon 
some dangerous reef. The land to which they jour- 
neyed was filled with their hereditary enemies — the 
murderous Indian and the Jesuit Frenchman. Al- 
though nearly two and a half centuries ago, and the 
actors all gone, the scenes remain almost as they 
were then — the uneasy, ever-moving sea, Mount 
Agamenticus against the sky, the blue hills of Cam- 
den, and above all that calm, steady guide of marin- 
ers, the North Star, still and forever pointing onward. 
Bridges and his colleagues diplomatically steered 
their bark between Scylla and Charybdis. The con- 
federacy of New England held aloof from the 

15(5 



of Old Lynn 

contestants ; D'Aulnay captured La Tour's fort at 
St. Johns, and the fortune of war went against 
La Tour, who was apparently ruined. D'Aulnay, 
however, opportunely died, whereupon La Tour 
married his widow and recovered his lost posses- 
sions. 

As a fit sequel to this episode, Cromwell, who was 
ever watchful of the Colonies, sent secret instructions 
to Boston, which resulted in the subjugation of the 
whole of Acadia by Massachusetts in 1654. It 
remained in possession of the English while Crom- 
well lived ; then by the treaty of Breda, in 1667, 
Charles II ceded Acadia with its vast and undefined 
limits to France, to become a football of European 
intrigues for a century. 

Mr. Newhall in his history of Lynn, while giving 
Mr. Bridges full credit for his talents and strong- 
character, seems to think he was hard and masterful 
in his relations with inferiors. It is to be remem- 
bered that he was a magistrate in a new country 
where it was considered necessary to hold a tight 
rein over the conduct of adventurers who disturbed 
the well-ordered plan of the Puritan theocracy. 
Violators of established rules naturally complained 
of those who restrained them. His associates found 
nothing in him to condemn. Robert Keayne, the 
eminent merchant of Boston, the first commander 
of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, 
unconsciously put on record testimony of his domestic 
life when he wrote in his will these words : " I have 
forgott one Loveing Couple more that came not to 



Hearths and Homes 

my minde till I was shutting vp ; that is Cap* Bridges 
& wife to whom I give forty shillings." 

No man who lacked suavity and winning social 
manners could have persuaded calculating London 
merchants to have ventured their dearly loved funds 
in an iron works experiment across the Atlantic, in 
a savage and unknown land. To negotiate a success- 
ful treaty with subtle Frenchmen required all the 
powers of a keen and polished man of affairs. The 
uniform success of Mr. Bridges in everything he 
undertook, his continued advancement in places of 
trust and power, are better witnesses for our judg- 
ment of his character than the whine of those who 
felt his righteous discipline. 

Edward Johnson in his " Wonder- Working Provi- 
dence" thus tersely sums up the character of Mr. 
Bridges : " He was endued with able parts, and for- 
ward to improve them to the Glory of God and his 
people's good." 



158 



Qjufadla Odrci 








.SoutfiDoov, ?(>-fi> 

The Old Tunnel Meeting-House 



EVOLUTION OF THE TOWN FROM THE 
PARISH. 1 



pQN the first edition of " Lewis' History of 
I Lynn" in the annals under date 1805, Mr. 
3 Lewis wrote : — 



" For one hundred and seventy-three years, from 
the building of the first parish meeting-house, the 
people had annually assembled in it for the transac- 
tion of their municipal concerns. But this year, the 
members of that parish observing the damage which 
such meetings occasioned to the house, and believing 
that, since the incorporation of other parishes, the 
town had no title in it, refused to have it occupied 
as a town-house. This refusal occasioned much con- 
troversy between the town and parish, and committees 
were appointed by both parties to accomplish an 
adjustment. An engagement was partially made for 
the occupation of the house, on the payment of 
twenty-eight dollars annually ; but the town refused 
to sanction the agreement, and the meetings were 
removed to the Methodist meeting-house, on the 
eastern part of the common." 

This statement unabridged and unenlarged upon 
stands in each subsequent edition of Lewis and of 
Newhall. 

1 Lynn Historical Society, December 14, 1898. 

159 



Hearths and Homes 

If the records of the Parish and Town had been 
written out fully, there would have been much of 
historical interest in what might have been the 
dramatic ending of the Puritan problem of a union 
of Church and State, Parish and Town, in Lynn. 

To attempt to relate the story of how the modern 
Lynn with its plethora of religious sects was evolved 
from a Puritan parish would be too much of a tax 
upon your patience for an evening's talk. 

One of the peculiarities of Lynn is the fact that 
two men, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Newhall, who have done 
so much to elucidate our history, were not in touch 
with that amazing religious reformation which created 
the short-lived Commonwealth of England and the 
enduring Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While 
each was loyal to his native town, each was proud 
of his connection with the Church, the protesting 
against conformity with which was the moving cause 
of the settling of Massachusetts. If our historian 
had been a Congregationalist, either Unitarian or 
Trinitarian, he would have found a theme of interest 
in tracing the sequence of events which led to this 
controversy. 

The theory of the Puritan planters was that the 
fee of all lands was in the Company, and that grants 
for plantations were made for the settlement of a 
Parish, and incidentally for the civil concerns of such 
Parish. A prime concern of the Parish and its crea- 
ture the Town was the support of the ministry. 
Hence the Town in granting to individuals made it 
a condition that all the land should bear its share in 

160 



of Old Lynn 

the common burdens of the Town, an important item 
of which was the ministry. 

Rev. Dr. Parsons Cooke, Lynn's most profound 
student of and brilliant writer upon the early days, 

says : — 

" This was the obligation which lay upon the land, 
a reserve tacitly made in the original grant, and 
which could not be nullified in passing from one 
owner to another. It was a condition in the deed 
which bound and attached it to the titles of all future 
owners." 

The Puritan plan of carrying on all affairs eccle- 
siastical and civic in the Parish seems to have worked 
without friction in Lynn until the Colonial Charter 
was abrogated and the usurpation of Sir Edmund 
Andros had been ended and the Provincial Charter 
was in full force. For nearly a hundred years the 
Puritan Theocracy had dominated New England. 
Great changes took place in the era of the Provincial 
Charter and of the Royal Governors. 

The Tunnel Meeting-house 1 had been built by 
assessment upon all the acres of the whole Town 
in 1682. 

In spite of the locating of new parishes and the 
setting up of rival denominations, the meeting-house 

J The illustration of The Old Tunnel Meeting-House — not the 
first meeting-house, but the first erected on the Common — accom- 
panying this is a fac simile of a pen sketch made by Alonzo Lewis, 
the historian and bard of Lynn, found among his papers, and now, 
by the kindness of Mr. Charles Henry Newhall, in the possession 
of the Lynn Historical Society. 

161 



Hearths and Homes 

of the First Parish was the place of meeting for all 
purposes of the Town for one hundred and seventy- 
three years, as Mr. Lewis recorded. 

The first break in the Parish was a legitimate one 
even from the Puritan standpoint. It was a long- 
distance for the farmers of Lynn End or Lynnfield 
to travel to worship on Lynn Common in the short 
winter days when they frequently had more severe 
snow-storms than we had upon the last night of 
January of the present year. 

Recognizing this stumbling block in the way of 
proper observance of the Lord's Day, the Town voted, 
November 17, 1712 : — 

"In answer to the petition of our neighbors, the 
farmers, so called, dated Feb. 13, 1711, desiring to 
be a precinct, that all the part of the town that lies 
on the northerly side of that highway that leads 
from Salem to Reading be set off for a precinct, and 
when they shall have a meeting-house and a minister, 
qualified according to law, settled to preach the word 
of God amongst them, then they shall be wholly 
freed from paying to the ministry of the Town and 
not before. And if afterwards they shall cease to 
maintain a minister amongst them then to pay to 
the minister of the Town as heretofore." 

The conditions of the above vote were complied 
with, and in 1720 Lynnfield became a Precinct and 
the Second Parish of Lynn, and exempt from paying 
to the ministry of the Town. 

The first alien denomination to set up a meeting- 
was in the troubled time of Andros. On the 18th of 

162 



of Old Lynn 

5th month, 1689, the Friends held their first monthly 
meeting at Lynn. They had previously, in 1678, 
erected a meeting-house on Wolf Hill, on what is 
now Broad Street, upon the land still owned by the 
Society. 

The incursion of the Quakers was the first serious 
menace of the Puritan domination and the most 
serious till the advent of Methodism a century later. 
Of the good sense of the Parish in this matter Dr. 
Cooke says : " The friction engendered by the re- 
quirement that all the Colonists should be taxed to 
support the ministry was one of the greatest sources 
of disaster to the Puritan cause. But the Parish 
in Lynn took early measures to mitigate the evils 
of this law, and so far to relax its force as to main- 
tain good neighborhood with the Quakers. In the 
year 1722 they voted : — 

" ' The Parish considering that sundry of our neigh- 
bors called Quakers, who have in times past re- 
quested to be dismissed from paying taxes to our 
minister, Rev. Nathaniel Henchman, which in some 
respects hath been granted, — but now our Parish 
observing said Quakers frequently purchasing lands, 
that have usually paid to the support of our minister 
in times past, and under like obligation with our 
other lands to pay to the maintenance of our minis- 
ter, — wherefore, voted, that all the lands belonging 
to said Parish, purchased by said Quakers (not mean- 
ing one of another) since the settlement of our 
present minister, as also all other ratable lands, in 
whose hands soever, shall for the future pay to said 
Parish, excepting only such lands and estates of the 

163 



Hearths and Homes 

several Quakers hereafter named, now freed from 
paying to the Parish the present year, and -the same 
to be at the discretion of the Parish, from year to 
year, whether to pay or not.' " 

Then follows a list of fifteen persons that were 
exempt. Similar votes, exempting individuals in 
about the same number, were passed from year to 
year for several years. From this it seems that it 
had been the custom before this to exempt individu- 
als to some extent. 

The Society of Friends, considering its antagonistic 
origin, has little to complain of Puritan intolerance 
in Lynn. The Friends were thrifty and were adroit 
manipulators of men. They not only secured an 
exemption of their lands from contribution towards 
support of the ministry, but they exhibited a juggling 
feat with the schools such as no other society here 
ever approached. 

Wherever in this country the Roman Catholics 
have asked for a division of school funds, the Prot- 
estants have with one accord sounded the tocsin of 
alarm. 

The early Friends in the reign of Charles the 
Second, through the friendship between James, Duke 
of York, and William Penn, had a suspiciously close 
bond of union with the Catholics in their common 
dislike of Puritanism. Both Friends and Roman 
Catholics have always professed a strong desire for 
a guarded religious training for the young of their 
sects. Later developments reveal how in the fulness 
of time this scheme worked in Lynn. 

164 



of Old Lynn 

In a paper on the "Origin of Quakerism," prepared 
by Samuel Boyce, it is related : — 

"In 1784, application was made to the selectmen 
of Lynn for the proportion of the money which 
Friends were annually paying for the support of the 
public schools to be refunded to them, in order that 
it might be used towards defraying the expenses of 
their own school. Objections were at first made to 
this request, but after some time had elapsed Friends 
were allowed to draw back annually a portion of this 
money for that purpose. The school was continued 
about forty years, and this privilege was granted 
them most of the time." 

Not only were the Friends allowed their propor- 
tion of the school fund, but they were (as a Society) 
permitted to choose members of the School Commit- 
tee, and were wherever they lived a Ward of the 
Town. 

Thus was established a full-fledged and original 
parochial school on the soil of Puritan Lynn. 

The Methodists attempted the same project, but 
in Town Meeting, February 23, 1792, it was voted 
" That the Methodists do not draw their part of the 
school money back." 

In 1821 the Friends' parochial school was done 
away with by a vote " That the Town be redistricted 
anew, as it respects the several schools without any 
regard to any particular religious society." 

It was not till the close of Rev. Jeremiah Shepard's 
happy and united pastorate of forty-one years that 
the First Parish and the people of Lynn realized 

165 



Hearths and Homes 

that the golden age of the Puritan Theocracy had 
passed — that the ecclesiastical and civil concerns of 
the whole people were not within the scope of the 
First Parish. 

Lynnfield had become an independent parish, and 
the Friends within the territory of the First Parish 
had become landowners exempt from Parish taxes 
and voters in Town meetings. The most laconic and 
yet comprehensive statement of the actual divorce 
of Parish and Town is to be found in Dr. Cooke's 
" Centuries " (page 196) : — 

" Several noteworthy events affecting the Parish 
took place during Mr. Henchman's ministry. The 
next year after his settlement, that is, 1721, the 
Parish ceased to have its business done in town meet- 
ing. The separation was effected on this wise : At a 
town meeting there was an adjournment of Town 
business for half an hour to give the members of 
the Parish time for preliminary action. Then in a 
meeting ordered by those of the selectmen belonging 
to the Parish, a vote of members of the Parish was 
passed, ordering Richard Johnson and Theophilus 
Burrill to call a Parish meeting for organizing. The 
meeting was called, and a hundred voters attended 
and unanimously concurred in the proceedings." 

Dr. Cooke is so confident in his facts that he does 
not trouble himself with giving authorities that 
might lighten the labors of later gleaners in the local 
historical field, hence it was a pleasing surprise to 
find that his statement was an almost exact tran- 
script of the record of the Town Meeting held 

16G 



of Old Lynn 

March 5, 1721-22. That event, so tersely recorded, 
was one of the milestones in our history. It marked 
the close of a century of homogeneous Colonial life 
under the teachings of pure Calvinism expounded 
by three saintly Puritan men, Whiting, Cobbet and 
Shepard. 

The Town record was made as if an ordinary event 
was chronicled. Very few, if any, more striking and 
pregnant happenings ever took place within the walls 
of the Old Tunnel Meeting-house. The record was 
coolly made. The actors so far as we know were as 
" impassive as the marble in the quarry," utterly un- 
conscious of the passing of the Puritan idea and the 
incoming of the modern Town Meeting, divested of 
all ecclesiastical, and clothed with only civic powers. 

On the surface it would appear that this separation 
should include a discontinuance of the use of the 
meeting-house for the transaction of Town business. 

On the contrary, the Town used the building in all 
its official affairs for more than three-quarters of a 
century after this time. Within its homely walls 
men of the First Parish, Friends, the voters of Lynn- 
field and of Saugus debated and made appropriations 
for Town purposes while much history was making 
itself. 

The great Provincial feat of arms — the capture of 
Louisburg (the French Gibraltar in America) — by 
Massachusetts soldiers and sailors in 1745, happened 
while the Old Tunnel remained the Council House of 
the Town. 

Lexington, Concord Bunker Hill, the War of the 

167 



Hearths and Homes 

Revolution, the adoption of the Federal Constitution, 
the Presidency of Washington and of the elder Adams 
and other marvelous events occurred while the vil- 
lage Solons continued there to discuss problems of 
social life. 

Three generations walked up and down the sombre 
aisles ere the friction between Parish and Town 
became apparent, which resulted in 1806, in the 
abandonment by or the expulsion of the Town from 
the meeting-house. 

In order to show the tense relations of the people 
— the conservative clinging of the townspeople to 
the old house even after they had forsaken the faith 
therein preached — some reports and votes have been 
culled from the records. Only a small fraction of 
the voluminous records is copied, and that not con- 
secutively, but barely enough to give a hint of the 
importance of the issue in the minds of the fathers. 
First we copy from the Parish Records. By the 
Parish Records it will be seen that the Parish in the 
beginning of the contention did not absolutely bar 
the Town from its house, but simply insisted that it 
should only be used in rotation with the other meet- 
ing-houses in Town — that is, that the hitherto un- 
divided burden of the Parish in providing shelter for 
the Town should be divided and borne in part by the 
other societies. 

March 20, 1805, the Parish 

" Voted that the Town shall not in the future hold 
their Town Meetings in the First Parish meeting- 

168 



of Old Lynn 

house only in rotation, and the April meeting to be 
considered as one. 

"Voted that the Parish committee be directed to 
notify the selectmen of this vote." 

January 9, 1806 : - 

" _ Voted to accept of the report of their committee, 
which is as follows, viz. : The Parish, at their meet- 
ing in March last, voted that it was not their choice 
that the Town should hold any Town Meeting in 
future in the said Parish meeting-house unless by 
rotation in the several meeting-houses in Town, and 
that the meeting in April then next ensuing might 
be holden in said house as the first in rotation, — the 
meeting was accordingly held in said house, and in 
May following, the Town voted that their meeting 
should be holden in rotation in the several meeting- 
houses in Town. 

" The selectmen of the Town now ask leave of the 
First Parish to hold their next Town Meeting in 
their meeting-house as the first meeting in the rota- 
tion. Although the Parish conceive that they have 
already taken their turn yet they are willing to 
sacrifice their own private interest and feelings, and 
submit to a partial evil for the general good, it is 
therefore voted that the Town be permitted to hold 
their next meeting in the said house as the first in 
the rotation. Provided that the next meeting be 
holden and finished previously to the first day of 
March next. 

Signed by the committee, 

JAMES GARDNER. 
WM. MANSFIELD. 
FRED BREED. 
THOMAS RHODES. 
CHARLES NEWHALL." 
Jan. 16, 1806. 

169 



Hearths and Homes 

January 30, 1806 : - 

" Voted that the Parish committee be a committee 
to appear at the adjournment of the Town Meeting 
and forbid the Town in the name and behalf of the 
First Parish, of ever holding any Town Meeting in 
said Parish meeting-house in future unless by the 
consent of the said Parish. 

" Voted that the Clerk serve the Town with a copy 
of the above vote." 

From the Town Records. 

"The undersigned, a committee chosen by the 
Town to treat with a committee from the First 
Parish in Lynn in order to effect a settlement of a 
dispute that has arisen relative to the right claimed 
by the Town to transact their public business in the 
old meeting-house so called, report that they have the 
mortification to learn that the Parish has declined 
to unite with the Town in this pacific measure. But 
although the conduct of the Parish in this respect 
may appear to close the door against all further 
attempts of the Town towards a compromise, never- 
theless, when we recollect that some of the proceed- 
ings of our last meeting however well intended or 
proper in themselves, give umbrage to many of our 
brethren of the parish as being in their opinion cal- 
culated to prevent a reconciliation, and although we 
are compelled in justice to the Town to declare that 
we view the measures as respects their appointment 
of a committee as sufficient evidence of the Town's 
accommodating disposition, and that the omission of 
the Town through mistake to invest them with power 
to treat, etc., does not in the least weaken or impair 
that evidence, nevertheless, we, the Town, in the 
spirit of charity and candor will give the complaints 
of the Parish before hinted all that weight they may 

170 



of Old Lynn 

desire, that we take leave further to recommend that 
in order to evidence beyond a doubt that the Town 
are still desirous to promote concord and harmony 
between them and their brethren of the Parish, and 
to avoid the manifold evils of a contest in law, where 
the interest of the parties are so connected and 
blended that however decided in law will, in addition 
to an enormous expense, be attended with far more 
pernicious consequences, when fellow citizens of the 
same town, the same neighborhood, family connec- 
tions, near relatives, etc., will be enclosed in an un- 
happy quarrel which in the nature of things will give 
strength to those discordant passions which are the 
baneful source of human misery. 

" As a means to avoid these accumulated evils and 
to establish tranquility among all classes of our fel- 
low townsmen, your committee respectfully submit 
for your consideration, whether it would not be best 
for the Town by Resolve by vote, that we are still 
ready to listen to any proposals from the Parish that 
may tend towards an amicable settlement of this 
unhappy dispute. 

JOSEPH FULLER. 
HENRY BURCHSTEAD. 
NATHAN HAWKES. 
RICH'D SHUTE. 
TIMOTHY MUNROE. 
MICA'H NEWHALL. 

Committee. ' ' 
Lynn, Feb. 9, 1806. 

The warrant for Town Meeting, dated March 7, 
1806, contained this article : — 

"Also to determine what further measures are neces- 
sary for the Town to adopt to support and establish 
a privilege of meeting in the old meeting-house, 
which they and their fathers have ever heretofore 

171 



Hearths and Homes 

enjoyed and to determine where the next meeting 
shall be called." 

Town Meeting, March 17, 1806 : — 

" Voted to refer the determination of the matter 
of right of meeting in the old meeting-house to the 
adjournment of this meeting, and the Town are 
ready to meet the Parish by their committee to 
compromise the business." 

Under same date the next action was : — 

" Voted the Selectmen apply to the Methodist So- 
ciety for their house to hold the April meeting in. 

" Voted to adjourn this meeting to the place where 
the April meeting shall be held." 

The warrant for the Annual Meeting for the choice 
of State Officers for 1806 began as follows : — 

"The freeholders and other inhabitants of the 
Town of Lynn qualified as the law requires, are 
hereby notified to attend a Town Meeting to be 
holden at the Methodist meeting-house in said Town 
on Monday the 7th day of April next at 1 o'clock P.M. 

HENRY HALLOWELL. 
HENRY OLIVER, 
dated NATHAN HAWKES. 

Lynn, March 28, 1806. Selectmen." 

Lynn, April 7, 1806 : - 

"Town met agreeable to notification. At this 
meeting it was voted to choose a committee for the 
purpose of filling up the blanks for a compromise 
with the old Parish, relative to the Town's using the 
old meeting-house, and to report at May meeting. 

172 



of Old Lynn 

"Voted, Zachariah Attwill, Samuel Collins, Abner 
Cheever and Thomas Mansfield be said committee. 

"Voted the Selectmen provide a house for May 
meeting at the Town's expense." 

May 1, 1806 : - 

" The Selectmen issue the warrant for Town Meet- 
ing for choice of representatives to General Court to 
be held in the old meeting-house, May 12, 1806." 

This report was made at the meeting : - 

"As it appears to be the wish of both Town and 
Parish to have the unhappy dispute between the 
Town and First Parish respecting the old meeting- 
house amicably adjusted the following is submitted 
to the Town for their consideration ; it is thought it 
will meet the views of both parties. 

" The Town cannot comply with the proposition of 
the Parish as offered to the Town's committee. 

" But the Town are willing to relinquish all their 
right in the said house on the following considera- 
tions viz. : 

" 1. The Town shall have leave to transact all 
municipal business in the said house as usual. 

" 2. The Town shall sweep said house and if neces- 
sary wash it as soon as may be after each meeting. 

" 3. The Town shall make good all damages which 
the house shall sustain by such meeting as soon as 
may be after each meeting, and in case of any dis- 
pute the Town shall choose one man and the Parish 
one, who shall be arbitrators to fix sd damage. 

"4. The Town shall pay the Parish Treasurer 
annually the sum of dollars as the Town's 

proportion of the general repairs in and on the house. 

"5. This stipulation shall continue in force for 
the term of years. 

173 



Hearths and Homes 

" The committee appointed on the part .of the Town 
at their meeting on the 7th of April, have met with 
the committee on the part of the First Parish and 
have agreed to fill up the blanks left within the 
proposals as follows, viz. : the blank for compensation 
to be filled with twenty-eight dollars per annum and 
the blank for the number of years filled at twenty 
years. 

"And the same is submitted to the Town and 
Parish. 
Lynn, April 28, 1806. 

ZAC'H ATTWILL. FRED'K BREED. 

SAM'L COLLINS. THOMAS RHODES. 

ABNER CHEEVER. WILL'M MANSFIELD. 

THOMAS MANSFIELD. EPH'M BREED. 

on the part of the Town. on the part of the Parish." 

" Voted by the Town on the 12 of this instant May 
to reject the above report." 

The next warrant for Town Meeting was issued 
January 10, 1807, and the place of meeting was the 
Methodist Meeting-house. 

At the April meeting, 1807, there was allowed : 

" For the use and repairs of the Methodist meeting- 
house $42.25. 

" N.B. The above sum included nineteen dollars 
paid to Col. Breed and Harris Chadwell for the use 
and repairs of the old meeting-house." 

In 1806, as well as in 1721, the irritating element 
which caused the First Parish to close its doors upon 
the Town may be traced to ecclesiastic origin. 

The Quakers and the several parishes could legis- 
late in peace with the Parish in the old house. 

174 



of Old Lynn 

A more aggressive sect had come to Town and 
pitched its tent within sight of the Old Tunnel. 

Benjamin Johnson, a prominent man — a leader in 
the development of the shoe business and a member 
of the First Church — had heard and been impressed 
with Methodist preaching in the South. 

Mr. Johnson invited Jesse Lee, the eloquent Meth- 
odist preacher, to come here. Lee arrived on the 
fourteenth of December, 1790. Since that day Meth- 
odism has been a particularly active and vital power 
in Lynn. Mr. Lee set up his church — militant — in 
the nouses of Mr. Johnson and of Mr. Enoch Mudge, 
the one at the north end of Market Street, the other 
at the corner of South Common and Vine Streets. 
One was east and the other was west of the old 
meeting-house, so that he flanked the Parish. Some- 
times he was permitted to occupy the meeting-house 
for evening meetings, and when this was refused, 
the Methodists, on the fourteenth day of June, 1791, 
began to build the first meeting-house of their society 
just in front of what is now Lee Hall. In twelve 
days from the time the timber was cut, we are told, 
the house was ready for occupancy. It was a plain, 
unfinished building, 34 by 44 feet. It suited the 
plain, earnest Methodists of those days. It stood out 
in full view of the First Parish Meeting-house, and 
a few years later it became a convenient shelter for 
Town Meetings, when the First Parish ejected the 
Town from the Old Tunnel. Thereafter, with occa- 
sional meetings at the hall of Paul and Ellis Newhall, 
at the corner of Market and Essex Streets, it was 

175 



Hearths and Homes 

occupied by the grace of the Methodist Society for 
Town purposes, till the erection of the Town House 
on the Common in 1814. 

There are two sides to every shield. 

The freemen of the Town claimed that they and 
their fathers had always used the meeting-house, 
that a tax upon the whole property had erected the 
building and had maintained it, and that consequently 
they and their successors had a prescriptive right 
to enjoy the same privileges. At the time of the 
controversy the First Parish was in a dire plight. 
Its pastor, Rev. Thomas Cushing Thacher, lacked the 
power of his predecessors ; he had not the gifts of 
solidity and earnestness, his intellectual parts were 
not equal to that of the family to which he belonged. 
The functions of his sacred office were not appre- 
ciated by him, and secular affairs engrossed his mind. 
Mr. Thacher's ministry extended from 1794 to 1813. 

His immediate predecessor, Rev. Obediah Parsons, 
had faults even more inconsistent with his profession 
than those of Mr. Thacher. 

With such guides it is not strange that Jesse Lee's 
intense earnestness and his fiery preaching made the 
new sect popular. A large portion of the First 
Parish went over to the Methodists. Even the dea- 
cons of the Parish, William Farrington and The- 
ophilus Hallowell, joined the new movement and 
carried away the communion plate of the Parish, 
probably under the impression that where the deacons 
were there was the Church. Over the carrying away 
of the communion service a long contention was had, 

176 



of Old Lynn 

which resulted in its return ; with it Deacon Farring- 
ton came back. But seeds of bitterness remained. 
The positive, pushing men of the community were 
in the new Church. 

According to the opinion of those who remained 
in the Parish, they had abandoned the faith taught 
by the founders, and in forming an alien Church 
they had forfeited their rights in the old meeting- 
house. 

To the Parish it seemed unfair that men who 
worshiped elsewhere should seek to retain a secular 
control over the meeting-house. Hence the denial 
of its use by the Parish — the appointment of a joint 
committee — the compromise agreed to by the com- 
mittee recognizing the right of the Parish to receive 
compensation for its use and the refusal of the Town 
to accept the compromise. 

The Parish was weak in numbers, but by the vote 
of its enemies its contention was maintained that 
secular as well as ecclesiastical use of its property 
was in the Parish, and that the title to the Old 
Tunnel was in those who maintained the faith of the 
fathers in years of disaster as well as of prosperity. 



177 



COLONIAL LAND TITLES. 




lj||HOEVER is interested in the soil of the locali- 
ty in which his lot in life has placed him may 
be interested to know how title in it was 



acquired and maintained by his ancestors. 

When the colonizing Englishman turned his atten- 
tion to this land that we now possess, there were two 
parties who had some sort of title to the soil. Rem- 
nants of the North American Indians partially occu- 
pied the land, more as hunters and fishers than as 
tillers of the soil, in a loose tribal authority. This 
prior claim by quasi-occupation our fathers pushed 
aside till they were menaced, in later years, by the 
feudal pretentions of Sir Edmund Andros and his 
followers when they reinforced their Colonial Court 
titles by releases from such scattered Indians as they 
could find and bribe. 

The other claimant was that "wisest fool in 
Christendom," the Scot James, the first King of 
England of that name who claimed by right of the 
discovery — by brighter men than himself — all the 
Continent of North America. 

This King, on the third of November, 1620, made 
a grant to the Council established at Plymouth, in the 

1 Lynn Historical Society, May 4, 1897. 

179 



Hearths and Homes 

County of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering 
and governing of New England in America, of all 
that part of America " lying and being in bredth from 
forty degrees to forty-eight degrees of north latitude 
and in length of and within all the bredth aforesaid 
through the mainland from sea to sea." 

This was a broad belt of territory and covered not 
only the whole of New England and New York, but 
also Canada and the Maritime Provinces of Great 
Britain. The consideration for this great grant was 
the payment to the King and his heirs and successors 
of one-fifth part of all the gold and silver ores found 
in the territory. The consideration exacted by the 
covetous Scot failed, for gold and silver ores have not 
yet materialized in our rock-ribbed soil. 

Something of more importance than gold or silver 
came out of the Plymouth Council. This was the 
sale by the Council March 19, 1627-8, to Sir Henry 
Rosewell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcott, John 
Humphrey, John Endicott and Symon Whetcombe, 
their heirs and associates forever, of a tract of land 
which was described as being three miles north 
of any and every part of the Merrimac River, 
and three miles south of any or every part of the 
Charles River and extending westward to the Pacific 
Ocean. 

On the fourth of March, 1628-9, in the fourth 
year of the reign of Charles I., " The Charter of the 
Colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England " 
passed the seals. This instrument the political guide 
of our fathers recites : — 

180 



of Old Lynn 

"And for us, our heirs and successors, we will and 
ordain that the said Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John 
Yong, Sir Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Southcott, 
John Humfrey, John Endicott, Symon Whetcombe, 
Isaack Johnson, Samuell Aldersey, John Ven, Mathewe 
Cradocik, George Harwood, Increase Noell, Richard 
Pery, Richard Bellingham, Nathaniell Wright, Samuell 
Vassall, Theophilus Eaton, Thomas Goffe, Thomas 
Adams, John Browne, Samuell Browne, Thomas 
Hutchins, William Vassall, William Pinchion, and 
George Foxcroft, and all such others as shall here- 
after be admitted and made free of the Company 
and Society hereafter mentioned, shall, from time to 
time, and at all times forever hereafter be, by virtue of 
these presents, one body corporate and politic in fact 
and name, by the name of the Governor and Company 
of the Massachusetts Bay in New England : And them 
by the name of the Governor and Company of the 
Massachusetts Bay in New England, one body politic 
and corporate in deed, fact, and name : we do for us, 
our heirs and successors, make, ordain, constitute, 
and confirm by these presents, and that by that name 
they shall have perpetual succession : And that by 
the same name they and their successors shall, and 
may be capable and enabled, as well to implead and to 
be impleaded, and to prosecute, demand and answer, 
and be answered unto, in all and singular suits, 
causes, quarrels, and actions of what kind or nature 
soever. And also to have, take, possess, acquire, and 
purchase any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or 
any goods or chattels, And the same to lease, grant, 
demise, alien, bargain, sell and dispose of as other 
leige people of this our realm of England, or any 
other corporation or body politic of the same may 
lawfully do : And, further, that the said Governor 
and Company and their successors may have forever 

181 



Hearths and Homes 

one common seal to be used in all causes and occasions 
of the said Company and the same seal may alter, 
change, break, and new make, from time to time, at 
their pleasures. And our will and pleasure is. And 
we do hereby for us, our heirs and successors, ordain 
and grant, That, from henceforth forever, there shall 
be one Governor, one Deputy Governor, and eighteen 
assistants of the same Company, to be from time to 
time constituted, elected and chosen out of the free- 
men of the said Company, for the time being, in such 
manner and form as hereafter in these presents is 
expressed. Which said officers shall apply themselves 
to take care for the best disposing and ordering of 
the general business and affairs of, for and concerning 
the said lands and premises hereby mentioned to be 
granted, and the plantation thereof, and the govern- 
ment of the people there." 

The King, when this charter was granted, was too 
busy with the gathering storm at home, out of which 
was to be evolved his own death on the scaffold, and 
the illustrious rule of Cromwell and the short-lived 
Commonwealth of England, — to see the far-reaching 
consequences of this act. 

He retained no jurisdiction, as his advisers saw in 
the matter only the incorporation of a trading estab- 
lishment, rather than what it was destined to be, — 
the planting of a greater England, — an enduring 
Commonwealth in the new world. 

In the autumn of 1629, after protracted and 
prayerful consideration of the legality of the scheme, 
the Company voted to transfer its patent and govern- 
ment from London to New England. Having taken 
the momentous world-infiuencing step of removing 

182 



of Old Lynn 

the charter and government across the trackless 
seas, it became necessary to choose a new Gov- 
ernor, as Matthew Craddock was not to join the 
emigrants. 

The election of the new Governor is related in 
simple but impressive language in the " Records of 
the General Court of the Governor and Company of 
the Massachusetts Bay in New England," under date 
of October 20, 1629 : - 

" And now the Court, proceeding to the election of 
a new Governor, Deputy, and Assistants, which, upon 
serious deliberation, hath been and is conceived to be 
for the especial good & advancement of their affairs, 
and having received extraordinary great commenda- 
tions of Mr. John Winthrop, both for his integrity 
and sufficiency as being one very well fitted and 
accomplished for the place of Governor, did put in 
nomination for that place the said Mr. John Winthrop, 
Sr., R: Saltonstall, Mr. Is. Johnson, and Mr. John 
Humfry ; and the said Mr. Winthrop was, with a 
general vote and full consent of this Court, by erec- 
tion of hands, chosen to be Governor for the ensuing- 
year, to begin on this present day ; who was pleased 
to accept thereof, and thereupon took the oath to that 
place appertaine. In like manner & with like free 
and full consent, Mr. John Humfry was chosen Deputy 
Governor." 

The last Court of the Governor and Company on 
the other side was held in the cabin of the "Arbdla" 
the famed vessel which was to bear Winthrop to his 
life of high achievement, while at anchor before the 
departure. The brief record explains the occasion : — 

183 



Hearths and Homes 

"At a Court of Assistants aboard the "Arbella," 
March 23, 1629. Present, Mr. John Winthrop, Gover- 
nor, Sir Rich. Saltonstall, Mr. Isaack Johnson, Mr. 
Thomas Dudley, Mr. William Coddington, Mr. Tho: 
Sharpe, Mr. William Vassall, Mr. Simon Bradstreete. 
Mr. John Humfrey (in regard he was to stay behind 
in England) was discharged of his Deputyshipp, & 
Mr. Thomas Dudley chosen Deputy in his place." 

Mr. John Humfrey, the Deputy, one of the pa- 
tentees, had his grant in Lynn, and lived here for 
some time. Humphrey's Pond, in Lynnfield, and 
Humphrey Street, in Swampscott, perpetuate the 
memory of John Humphrey and of his wife, Lady 
Susan, the daughter of the Puritan nobleman, the 
Earl of Lincoln. 

On the eighteenth of May, 1631, the seat of gov- 
ernment having been firmly fixed at Boston, it was 
determined that a General Court should be held at 
least once a year at which all the freemen were to 
assemble and choose the Assistants. Prior to this 
all the functions of government had been in the 
hands of the select and always influential " Court of 
Assistants." 

Critics of the Puritans have attributed the re- 
striction of the privileges of freemen to church mem- 
bers as religious bigotry. There was, however, even 
in those days an imperative necessity for the restric- 
tion of suffrage. Large numbers of unknown people 
were flocking to the new country. Our fathers saw 
perils threatening their projected institutions from the 
votes of new comers of loose life and conversation. 

184 



of Old Lynn 

Church members were presumably persons attached 
to the existing order of correct and moral habits. 
Hence for the well-being of the whole community the 
authorities made membership in the church a pre- 
requisite to the freeman's oath. The colony was to 
be a democracy but it was to be a democracy of the 
best elements and not of the worst. 

On the ninth of May, 1632, a democratic advance 
was had, as appears by the General Court records of 
that day. " It was generally agreed upon, by erection 
of hands, that the Governor, Deputy Governor, & 
Assistants should be chosen by the whole Court of 
Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistants, and freemen, 
and that the Governor shall always be chosen out of 
the Assistants." 

The first time that our Plantation is named in the 
Colony Records is, as is apt to be the case in mundane 
affairs, in a tax rate of A Court of Assistants holden 
at Boston, July 5, 1631 : — 

"It is ordered, there shall be levyed out of the 
several plantations the sum of thirty pounds for the 
making of the creek at the new town (Cambridge) 
viz : Winisemet (Chelsea) 15 s. Wessaguscus (Wey- 
mouth) 40 s.; Saugus 20 s.; Natascett (Nantasket) 10 s: 
Waterton (Watertown) V L. Boston V L. Dorchester 
4 L 10 s: Rocksbury (Roxbury) 3 L: Salem 3L. 5 s." 

The freemen of our plantation helped make the 
levy, and the capacity to be taxed and to pay the tax 
was an ample act of incorporation, and the only one 
the early towns had. 

185 



Hearths and Homes 

May 9, 1632, the autocratic Court of Assistants 
passed a vote which, as a seed dropped in fertile soil, 
grew into that wondrous American product Repre- 
sentative Government : — 

" It was ordered that there should be two of every 
plantation appointed to confer with the Court about 
raising of a public stock." 

Capt. Richard Wright and another, whose name 
cannot be deciphered on the Colonial Records, were 
appointed from Saugus. Two years later the people 
were ready to assume other functions of government 
than merely advising as to taxing themselves. 

At an Assistants' Court, held April 1, 1634, was 
passed the last vote wherein that body took action in 
regard to assurance of lands. Up to this time all 
grants of land — and they were many and large - 
had been made by the Court of Assistants : - 

" It was further ordered that the constable and four 
or more of the chief inhabitants of every town (to 
be chosen by all the freemen there, at some meeting 
there) with the advice of some one or more of the 
next assistants, shall make a ' surveying of the houses 
backeside, corne fieldes, moweing ground & other 
lands,' improved or inclosed, or granted by special 
order of the Court, of every free inhabitant there, 
and shall enter the same in a book (fairly written 
in words at length and not in figures) with _ the 
several bounds and quantities, by the nearest estima- 
tion, and shall deliver a transcript thereof into the 
Court, within six months now next ensuing, and the 
same so entered and recorded shall be a sufficient 

186 



of Old Lynn 

assurance to every such free inhabitant, his and their 
heirs and assigns, of such estate of inheritance or as 
they shall have in any such houses, lands or frank 
tenements. 

" The like course shall be taken for assurance of all 
houses and town lots of all such as shall be hereafter 
enfranchised, and every sale or grant of such houses 
or lots as shall be from time to time entered into the 
said book by the said constable and four inhabitants 
or their successors, (who shall be still supplied upon 
death or removal) for which entry the purchaser shall 
pay six pence, and the like sum for a copy thereof, 
under the hands of the said surveyors, or three of 
them." 

This vote was the germ from which has been 
evolved our cumbrous system of Registry of Deeds. 

The increased number of freemen, added to the 
cost of time lost in a journey to and from Boston, the 
danger of having the whole number of adult males 
absent from the scattered plantations, induced the 
creation of a representative body. 

The General Court which assembled on the four- 
teenth of May, 1634, consisted of the Governor, Deputy 
Governor, Secretary, Treasurer, the Assistants, with 
three representatives from each of eight towns. 
Lynn, then called Saugus, sent as its members three 
noted citizens, Capt. Nathaniel Turner, Edward Tom- 
lins and Thomas Willis. The eight towns represented 
were Newtown (Cambridge), Watertown, Charlestown, 
Boston, Roxbury, Dorchester, Saugus (Lynn) and 
Salem. Thus quietly was ushered into being The 
Great and General Court of Massachusetts which 

1ST 



Hearths and Homes 

annually since has gathered to make laws wise and 
unwise for us. 

This first General Court took upon itself at once 
large powers. It agreed that " none but the General 
Court hath power to choose and admit freemen." 
That none but the General Court hath power to make 
and establish laws, nor to elect and appoint officers — 
as Governor, Deputy Governor, Assistants, Treasurer, 
Secretary, Captains, Lieutenants, Ensigns, or any of 
like moment, or to remove such upon misdemeanor, 
as also to set out the duties and powers of the said 
officers. And lastly the matter which bears directly 
upon the subject — " That none but the General Court 
hath power to raise moneys and Taxes and to dispose 
of lands viz. to give and confirm property es." 

Grants of lands, from which grew many of the 
early New England towns, were made to a number of 
individuals, who became a sort of corporation and 
were called Commoners. They had a Moderator, 
Clerk, record book and committee. These proprieta- 
ries parceled out and conveyed the territory to in- 
dividuals. Other lands they retained in common. 
In modern times suits have grown out of contention 
between individuals, towns, and the inheritors of 
these ancient commoners. 

All Lynn conveyances seem to be based upon a 
different method. From the beginning here the 
Court recognized the inhabitants, that is, the Planta- 
tion, as the grantees. 

The list of the grants of land transcribed from the 
Records of Lynn by the worthy Andrew Mansfield, 

188 



of Old Lynn 

Town Recorder, is prefaced with these words : " These 
lands were given to the inhabitants of the Town of 
Lynn, Anno Domini 1638." 

This record was a confirmation of title by the 
Town to settlers, most of whom were already located 
on the lands preempted, as the modern American 
would say. 

The Court recognized the Plantation as de facto 
organized, and in 1638 the Town entered upon its 
book a list of its grants. 

In the allotment of land wide difference may be 
seen in the grants, ranging, in the case of Lynn, 
from eight hundred acres to Lord Brook, down to 
ten acres. This was done, however, upon an equi- 
table plan arranged in England before Winthrop 
sailed with the Charter. Each adventurer, or, as 
we now should say, stockholder, had two hundred 
acres of land for each fifty pounds adventured, and 
after that rate for more or less. At the same meet- 
ing, May 19, 1629, it was ordered : — 

"That all such persons as go over at their own 
charge and are adventurers in the common stock, 
shall have lands allotted to them for themselves and 
their families forthwith, 50 acres of land for each 
person ; but being no adventurers in the common 
stock shall have 50 acres of land for the master of 
the family, and such a proportion of land more if 
there 'be cause as according to their charge & qualitie 
the Governor and Council of New England shall 
think necessary for them, whereby their charge may 
be fully and amply supported ; unless it be to any 
with whom the company in London shall make any 

189 



Hearths and Homes 

particular agreement, to which relation is to be had 
in such case. 

"And for such as transport servants, land shall be 
allotted for each servant, 50 acres to the master ; 
which land the master is to dispose of at his discre- 
tion. In regard the servants transportation, wages 
& sc is at the master's charge." 

The smaller lots of land were given to the different 
handicraftsmen, such as carpenters, thatchers, weav- 
ers, millers, miners, and masons, who were solicited 
to join the great exodus. 

These men furnished brawn instead of cash and 
were provided with home lots, while the larger areas 
were given to the yeomen who were to try the ex- 
periment of raising English grains in Indian land. 

Our fathers were a land-hungry people. They 
came from a country where land was costly, entailed 
and difficult to transfer title. Here was abundance 
of land, cheap, and to be had in fee for the asking. 

The General Court paid for services of all kinds in 
land. In Lynn the people had scarcely occupied the 
oceanside at Sagamore and Wolf Hills and Swamp- 
scott and the water ways of Saugus River and Straw- 
berry Brook when they prospected the interior. As 
a first result the General Court records, March 13, 
1638-9, relate : - 

"Linn was granted 6 miles into the countrey & 
Mr. Hawthorne & Lieut. Davenport to view and in- 
form how the land beyond lyeth, — whether it may 
be fit for another plantation or no." 

190 



of Old Lynn 

The new grant became Lynn End or Lynnfield, 
later, our Second Parish, and then an independent 
town. More land still was craved by the farmers for 
their flocks and herds. Hence on the ninth of Sep- 
tember, 1639, the General Court granted more terri- 
tory to Lynn in the following language : — 

" The petition of the Inhabitants of Lynn, for a 
place for an inland plantation at the head of their 
bounds is granted them 4 miles square, as the place 
will afford : upon condition that the petitioner shall, 
within two years, make some good proceeding in 
planting, so as it may be a village, fit to contain a 
convenient number of inhabitants, which may in dew 
time have a church there ; and so as such as shall 
remove to inhabit there, shall not with all keepe their 
accomodations in Linn above 2 years after their re- 
moval to the said village, upon pain to forfeit their 
interest in one of them at their election : except this 
court shall see fit cause to dispence further with 
them." 

This " inland plantation," however, was not intended 
for a permanent addition to Lynn. It would have 
made too large a town for convenience of worship. 
It was, as the language of the grant shows, intended 
for such Lynn planters as should desire broader 
acres. They were to be under the care of Lynn till 
they had gathered a church. 

This last named grant was known as Lynn Village, 
and its church being organized, Lynn's parental au- 
thority was ended by the incorporation, May 29, 1644, 
of Lynn Village as the Town of Reading. So ended 
our control of the fair town by " the great pond " at 

191 



Hearths and Homes 

the head of Saugus River, though forty-two years 
later the two towns were united as grantees in a 
noted blanket release from David Kunkshamooshaw 
and Abagail, his squaw, and other Indians reputed to 
be heirs-at-law of old Sagamore George No-Nose, 
alias Wenepawweekin. 

Mr. Lewis has copied from the Massachusetts Ar- 
chives and printed in his History the principal papers 
concerning Randolph's proceedings relative to grab- 
bing our sheep pasture, Nahant. From that time 
our common lands were undisturbed until 1706, when 
the Anglo Saxon passion for holding land in severalty 
proved too strong for the Mosaic community notions 
with which the first comers had been steeped. 

In the latter year " The six hundred acres," Nahant 
and the Great Lynn Woods, by order of the Town 
were allotted to individual owners. But that is 
another story and I have told it elsewhere. 

Upon the deposition of James II and the accession 
of William and Mary, the agents of our Colony peti- 
tioned to be reincorporated as formerly. A new 
charter, which is known in our history as the Prov- 
ince Charter, was granted in 1691. This Charter 
recites the provisions of the former one and the fact 
of its vacation by a judgment in Chancery, March 4, 
1684, and grants and ordains : — 

"That all and every such lands, tenements and 
Hereditaments and all other estates which any per- 
son or persons or Bodyes Politique or Corporate 
Townes, Villages, Colledges or Schooles doe hold and 
enjoy or ought to hold and enjoy within the bounds 

192 



I 



of Old Lynn 

aforesaid by or under any Grant or estate duly made 
or granted by any General Court formerly held or by 
virtue of the Letters Patent herein before recited or 
by any other lawful right or title whatsoever shall be 
by such person and persons Bodyes Politique and 
Corporate Townes, Villages and Colledges or Schooles, 
their respective heirs, successors and Assigns forever 
hereafter held and enjoyed according to the purport 
and intent of such respective Grant." 

This new grant was subject of course to the original 
reservation of one-fifth part of the gold and silver 
found. There was also an added assurance : — 

"It being our further Will and Pleasure that no 
Grants or Conveyances of any Lands, Tenements or 
Hereditaments to any Townes, Colledges, Schooles of 
Learning or to any private person or persons shall 
be judged or taken to be avoided or prejudiced for or 
by reason of any want or defect of Form but that the 
same stand and remain in force and be maintained ad- 
judged and have effect in the same manner as the 
same should or ought before the time of the said 
recited Judgment according to the Laws and Rules 
then and there usually practiced and allowed." 

Under this charter — with a succession of Royal 
Governors appointed by the Crown — our fathers lived 
till the Revolution having pretty much their own way, 
though not quite as free as they had been under the 
Colonial Charter. 

I have named two claims to the soil of Massachu- 
setts and of Lynn — sometimes conjoined — sometimes 
in opposition — under which our fathers assumed to 

193 



Hearths and Homes 

hold. Neither of them, however, was the vital ele- 
ment, which is to be found in the virile, overmaster- 
ing will of the great colonizing Puritan English race 
to have and to hold a new home by the strength of 
its own keen brains and hardy muscles under the 
guidance of the God of Moses. 



194 





'•T 





Castle Hill from Walden Pond 



THE CYCLE DAYS OF NEW ENGLAND. 1 



|^0 LOYAL son of Lynn can refuse to respond 
upon such a day and for such a cause as this. 
i ^U=^ There are many reasons why it is agreeable 



to me that my mite should be contributed to this 
school. The Principal of the school is not only a 
-descendant of Thomas Newhall, the first white child 
born in Lynn, but also of John Adam Dagyr, the 
" celebrated shoemaker of Essex," who revolutionized 
the staple industry of Lynn. She was reared in that 
part of the old Town which has the strongest hold 
upon my affections. 

The school stands upon the breezy hill which was 
the fairest and most attractive spot in the whole 
Plantation in the eyes of the planters of Lynn. Upon 
and about this hill five of the leading emigrants from 
the old world received their grants of land ; Thomas 
Willis, for whom the hill was originally called, received 
500 acres ; Edward Holyoke, whose name is perpetu- 
ated in a street and a spring, received 500 acres ; 

1 An address delivered as a part of the exercises celebrating the 
Fiftieth Anniversary of the Incorporation of the City of Lynn, in 
the Burrill Grammar School, Tower Hill, Lynn, Monday Morning, 
May 14, 1900. 

195 



Hearths and Homes 

George Burrill received 200 acres ; Nicholas Brown 
received 200 acres ; Richard Sadler, the first Clerk of 
the Writs, received 200 acres and the rock by his 
house. 

The old Boston road, which passes the school, and 
is not so steep as it formerly was, is the historic road 
of Lynn. Wherever the post-office was, used to be 
the centre of the Town ; the first three postmasters 
of Lynn, James Robinson, Ezra Hitchings and Samuel 
Mulliken, lived upon Boston Street, and had their 
offices there. 

The early settlers of Lynn came out of the fen 
country of England — a region reclaimed from the 
water, and formerly dyked even as Holland is to-day. 
They were tired of the dull, flat expanse upon which 
they were reared. Their eyes eagerly scanned the 
magnificent prospect of sea and marsh and river 
and woods seen from this gracefully rounded hilltop. 
Here they found it good to live, and when they died 
they left behind them the memory of right living, 
and descendants who have blessed their sires for 
seeking a freer life in the new world in so comfort- 
able a location. 

Notable happenings has this old street seen. Sam- 
uel Sewall, the witchcraft judge and Puritan diarist, 
records that he dined at Hart's in Lynn — the old 
house behind the big buttonwood at the corner of 
Federal and Boston Streets, not yet forgotten by the 
elders. John Adams frequently rode circuit to the 
East : he, too, dined at Hart's. Benedict Arnold 
passed by this spot on the 11th of September. 1775, 

196 



of Old Lynn 

upon his famous and quixotic campaign against Que- 
bec. President Washington went over this route on 
the 29th of October, 1789, in his own chariot, drawn 
by four horses, with Tobias Lear and Major Jackson 
as outriders on horseback. Of Lynn, Washington 
wrote in his diary : " It is said 175,000 pair of shoes 




HART'S, IN LYNN. 



(women's chiefly) have been made in a year by about 
400 workmen. There is only a row of houses, and not 
very thick on each side of the road." 

The turnpike and the railroad drew pageant travel 
away from the hill, and left the Burrill School free to 
go on its studious ways unvexed by bustle and noise. 

197 



Hearths and Homes 

I have had sufficient warning to refrain from talk- 
ing local history here, for I know that the Principal 
of this school has a great scrapbook into which has 
been diligently pasted all that has been written of this 
locality. I may say something of the family from 
which the name of the school is derived, and then 
pass on to safer ground. 

The advent of the Burrill family into Lynn is co- 
eval with its settlement. George Burrill, the pioneer, 
came from England, and located on the western side 
of Tower Hill, upon a grant which indicates him as a 
principal planter. Of him it is sufficient commenda- 
tion to say that he was the progenitor of a family 
whose several generations made a large part of the 
annals of Lynn for a hundred years. 

His son John, called in the records John senior, for 
many years a " prudential " or selectman, as such was 
a party in 1686 to the famous Indian deed of Lynn. 
John senior was the colleague of fighting Parson 
Jeremiah Shepard in the troubles which grew out of 
Sir Edmund Andros' and Edward Randolph's attempt 
to steal Nahant from the inhabitants. 

The broader political activity of the Burrill family 
dates from 1691, the last year of the inter-charter 
period, or the time between the Colonial and the Pro- 
vincial charters. It was the last year that the people 
of Massachusetts chose their own Governor, down to 
the time when the State, under its free Constitution, 
elected John Hancock. 

The venerable Simon Bradstreet, styled the Nicias 
of New England, was Governor. John Burrill, Sr., was 

19S 



of Old Lynn 

Representative to the Great and General Court. John 
Burrill, Jr., became Town Clerk of Lynn, which office 
he occupied until his death, thirty years later. The 
Town electing but one Representative at a time for 
several years, father and son alternated in represent- 
ing it. John Burrill, Jr., was a Representative twenty- 
four years, ten of which he served as Speaker. From 
the Speakership he went into the Council of the royal 
Governor. 

The year 1721 was an exciting one. Very little 
legislation was effected. Governor Samuel Shute and 
the General Court were fighting one of the hottest of 
the forensic battles which for many years the people 
waged with the royal prerogative. Worse than that, 
small-pox raged in Boston through the year. The 
Court was adjourned to the George Tavern on Boston 
Neck, then to Harvard College, then to the " Swan 
Tavern, because of the small-box near the College." 
All was in vain, so far as the Honorable John Burrill 
was concerned. 

The Boston News-Letter of Monday, December 18, 
1721, contained the following notice under date, Lynn, 
December 11 : — 

"The last night the Honorable John Burrill, Esq., 
one of His Majesty's Council, and one of the Judges 
of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas for the County 
of Essex, died of small-pox, in the sixty-second year 
of his age. He had been for many years Speaker of 
the House of Representatives, and behaved himself 
in that chair with great integrity, modesty and skill ; 
having a just and equal regard to the honor of the 

199 



Hearths and Homes 

government and the liberty of the people ; so that he 
was highly esteemed and beloved by both. He was a 
man of true and exemplary piety and virtue, endowed 
with a very clear understanding, solid judgment, and 
sound discretion. And God made him a great bless- 
ing, not only to his town and county, but to the whole 
province. Isaiah iii, 1 : ' For behold, the Lord God of 
hosts doth take away from Judah the stay and staff — 
the Judge — and the prudent — the honorable — and 
the counsellor.' " 

Governor Thomas Hutchinson, the historian of the 
period, likens Mr. Burrill to "the right honourable 
person, who for so many years filled the chair of the 
House of Commons with such applause." The Speaker 
of the Commons referred to was Sir Arthur Onslow, 
reputed the most accomplished parliamentarian who 
ever presided in the English House. The Governor 
says that the House " were as fond of Mr. Burrill as 
of their eyes " ; and he further records, " I have often 
heard his contemporaries applaud him for his great 
integrity, his acquaintance with parliamentary forms, 
the dignity and authority with which he filled the 
chair, the order and decorum he maintained in the 
debates of the House, his self-denial in remaining in 
the House, from year to year, when he might have 
been chosen into the Council, and saw others who 
called him their father, sent there before him." 

Alonzo Lewis writes : — 

" He gained a reputation which few men who have 
since filled his stations have surpassed. The purity 
of his character and the integrity of his life secured 
to him the warmest friendship of his acquaintance, 

200 



of Old Lynn 

and the unlimited confidence of his native town. He 
was affable in his manners, and uniformly prudent in 
his conduct. His disposition was of the most chari- 
table kind, and his spirit regulated by the most 
guarded temperance. He willingly continued in the 
House many years, when he might have been raised 
to a more elevated office, and his thorough acquaint- 
ance with the forms of legislation, the dignity of his 
deportment, and the order which he maintained in 
debate, gave to him a respect and an influence which 
probably no other Speaker of the House ever ob- 
tained." 

Ebenezer Burrill, the younger brother of "the 
beloved Speaker," was also a man of mark in Town 
and Colony. He was a Representative six times, and 
a member of the royal Governor's Council from 1731 
to 1746. 

These brothers were the only Lynn men who ever 
served at the Council board of the royal Governor. 
From this fact, probably, came the designation which 
long attached to the Burrills as " the royal family of 
Lynn." The brothers were astute politicians, for they 
had long public careers in conspicuous station, and 
pleased both crown and people. 

After them came two other Burrills, sons of 
Ebenezer. Their names were Ebenezer and Samuel. 
Ebenezer was Town Clerk seventeen years, and Rep- 
resentative twelve. He was one of " Sam Adams' 
rebels." His services in the General Court were 
during the momentous years from 1764 to 1775, to 
the very time that saw the first armed resistance to 
the royal authority. Samuel Burrill had the felicity 

201 



Hearths and Homes 

to be the Lynn member of the venerated convention 
of 1779, which framed the State Constitution, under 
which we live to-day. He served as Representative 
down to 1783, and thus rounded out a full century of 
eminent public service by one family. 

The perspective of fifty years is not long enough 
to treat of local history. The actors upon the stage 
are too near for us to critically compare the then and 
now. For example, the two opposing forces in the 
year 1850 were perhaps George Hood and Daniel C. 
Baker. They have passed on, but their children are 
our associates of to-day. One member of the first 
City Council is still a vigorous writer for the press. 1 
John L. Shorey, then a teacher, is to address one of 
the schools to-day. Master King died long ago, but 
he left a very active set of schoolboys behind him. 
The Principal of this school fifty years ago, now the 
accomplished Librarian of our noble Public Library, 
John C. Houghton, 2 sits beside me to-day. 

I cannot comment upon 1850, so I have deemed it 
wiser to devote my time mainly to a study of some 
curious figures in New England history. 

We do not study the stars from the housetops as 
did the wise men of the East, nor do events out of 
the common seem to us as special providences given 
for our reproof or guidance, as they appeared to our 
ancestors of Governor Winthrop's time. 

1 Joseph M. Rowell. 

-John Clarkson Houghton was born in Lynn, July 1, 1823. He 
died in Lynn, July 26, 1905. For forty-two years he was connected 
with the Lynn Public Library as Trustee and Librarian. 

202 



of Old Lynn 

The 19th day of April, which Massachusetts has 
decreed a public holiday, is, beyond all other days in 
the calendar, the anniversary of the mysterious cycle 
days of New England. It is the day upon which at 
periods eighty-six years apart have happened mo- 
mentous and portending events relating to our history. 
Whether mathematics have anything to do with the 
sequence of human events, Omnipotence only knows, 
but figures show a remarkable coincidence at least. 
To April 19, 1603, add 86 years. The result is April 
19, 1689. Add another 86 years. The result is April 
19, 1775. Add yet another 86 years, and we have 
April 19, 1861. 

I cannot claim any patent upon this cycle day of 
New England. John Gorham Palfrey, in his erudite 
and — from the Puritan standpoint — most satisfac- 
tory history of New England, brought out its peculiar 
recurrence. The volume in which it was mentioned 
was published in 1864, shortly after the latest repe- 
tition of the day. 

From time to time since then I have thought that 
the theme might be amplified. The invitation for 
to-day gave me the opportunity to indulge in some 
thoughts upon the matter. Dr. Palfrey is an eminent 
witness to call — he is an authority upon our history 
— and after I had prepared the substance of what I 
am to say to you, I hunted up his book, which I had 
not seen since my first reading at the time of its pub- 
lication. I was curious to know how closely I had 
carried his theory in my mind in the intervening 
years. Let me give Dr. Palfrey's own words, only 

203 



Hearths and Homes 

prefacing by saying, that I did not remember that he 
extended the parallel across the water. It seems that 
he did carry it back to 1603, but did not fix the exact 
month and day. 

" In the history of New England there are chrono- 
logical parallelisms not unworthy of remark. Some 
critical events in it were just a century apart. In 
1665 the courtiers tried her temper with Lord Claren- 
don's Commission ; in 1765 they tried it with Lord 
George Grenville's Stamp Act. In 1675 began the 
attack on her freedom which I have recorded in this 
volume ; in 1775 began the invasion which led to her 
independence of Great Britain. But the cycle of New 
England is eighty-six years. In the spring of 1603, 
the family of Stuart ascended the throne of England. 
At the end of eighty-six years, Massachusetts having 
been betrayed to her enemies by her most eminent 
and trusted citizen, Joseph Dudley, the people, on the 
19th day of April, 1689, committed their prisoner, the 
deputy of the Stuart King, to the fort in Boston which 
he had built to overawe them. Another eighty-six 
years passed, and Massachusetts had been betrayed 
to her enemies by her most eminent and trusted citi- 
zen, Thomas Hutchinson, when, at Lexington and 
Concord, on the 19th of April, 1775, her farmers 
struck the first blow in the war of American inde- 
pendence. Another eighty-six years ensued, and a 
domination of slaveholders, more odious than that of 
Stuarts or of Guelphs, had been fastened upon her, 
when, on the 19th of April, 1861, the streets of Balti- 
more were stained by the blood of her soldiers on 
their way to uphold liberty and law by the rescue of 
the national Capital." 



204 



of Old Lynn 

We may add another and an earlier cycle day to 
to those named by Dr. Palfrey. It occurred while 
our fathers were yet in the old home. We go back 
to old England eighty-six years, to dwell for a mo- 
ment upon the cause of our being here to-day in this 
fair New England city, instead of in an obscure old 
England parish. 

The year 1603 was pregnant with happenings which 
influenced the planting of New England. On the 
24th of March of that year died Elizabeth, the great 
Queen of England. On the 3d of April, James, her 
successor, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots — martyr 
or monster, as you read partisan history — attended 
service at the High Church of St. Giles at Edinburgh, 
and delivered a farewell harangue to the congrega- 
tion. His journey to London took thirty-two days. 
So that, upon our fateful day, the 19th of April, 1603, 
this man, whose mental make-up had so much to do 
with the growth of the Puritan idea, was just half 
way from the old to the new — from Edinburgh to 
London. 

Of the King's first meeting with the Puritan 
ministers Charles Knight writes : — 

" When the Puritan ministers presented their peti- 
tion to James on his journey to London they asked 
for a conference. On the 14th, 15th and 16th of 
January, 1604, the King summoned to Hampton 
Court the Archbishop of Canterbury, eight bishops, 
five deans, and two doctors, who were to sustain the 
ceremonies and practises of the church and to oppose 
all innovation. To meet them four members of the 

205 



Hearths and Homes 

reforming party were summoned, including Dr. Rey- 
nolds, a divine of acknowledged learning and ability. 
Royalty never displayed itself in a more undignified 
manner. Episcopacy never degraded itself more by 
a servile flattery of royalty. James, in his insolent 
demeanour to the representatives of a growing party 
in the English church, thought to avenge himself for 
the humiliation he had been occasionally compelled 
to endure from ministers of the Scottish kirk. He 
was the chief talker in these conferences. Harring- 
ton, who was present, says, ' The King talked much 
Latin, and disputed with Dr. Reynolds ; but he rather 
used upbraidings than argument, and told the peti- 
tioners that they wanted to strip Christ again, and 
bid them away with their snivelling. . . . The bishops 
seemed much pleased, and said His Majesty spoke 
by the power of inspiration. I wist not what they 
mean, but the spirit was rather foul-mouthed.' A 
few alterations were made in the Common Prayer 
Book, and a new version of the Holy Scriptures was 
ordered to be undertaken. James had taken his side ; 
but his pedantic vanity, though suited to the taste 
of Bishop Bancroft who fell upon his knees and 
thanked God for giving them such a king, was not 
quite fitted for the government of the English nation." 

At the time the iconoclastic achievements of 
Henry VIII and the reign of Elizabeth and Cecil and 
Shakespeare and Bacon and the defeat of the Spanish 
Armada had broken the shackles and opened the eyes 
of all Englishmen to a broader life, this man, whom 
Macaulay thus describes, came upon the scene : — 

" It was no light thing that, on the very eve of 
the decisive struggle between our Kings and their 
Parliaments, royalty should be exhibited to the world 

206 



of Old Lynn 

stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears, 
trembling at a drawn sword, and talking in the style 
alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue." 

This is a pen drawing by the great historian of the 
King, whose name is prefixed to our version of the 
Bible as King James, Defender of the Faith, because 
the translation of the prelates was made during the 
reign of this man, whom Sully aptly styled "the 
wisest fool in Christendom." 

The straightness of the Scottish Protestantism was 
galling to the son of Catholic Mary. It was an easy 
step for this self-indulgent man to fall under the 
influence of the Anglican prelates. 

A bundle of contradictions, James madly asserted 
the divine right of kings, which had its legitimate 
result in the disgraceful death of his son on the 
scaffold and the ignominious flight of his grandson 
before the victorious approach of William of Orange. 
The Stuart doctrine of the divine right of kings made 
Parliament and country Puritan for the time being. 

Anglican prelacy had driven men of tender con- 
sciences, like Robinson, Carver, Brewster and Win- 
slow, to Leyden, in Holland, from whence, desiring 
to rear their children in English habits and English 
tongue, they had fled to the bleak shores of New 
Plymouth. 

This New Plymouth was, however, in the divine 
plan, the fertile seed-ground for the planting of the 
world-compelling religious and political freedom for- 
mulated in the immortal compact signed in the cabin 
of the Mayfioiver in Cape Cod Harbor, on the lid of 

207 



Hearths and Homes 

a chest, November 11, 1620 (0. S.). There the Pil- 
grims from Scrooby and Auster field, upon the sure 
foundation of Plymouth Rock, anchored the ark of 
the world's progress. 

After the death of James, in 1625, and the acces- 
sion of his abler but more stiff-necked son, the ill- 
fated Charles, the persecution of the Puritans by 
Archbishop Laud and the prelacy redoubled its 
energy. Then began the great exodus of the Puri- 
tans to New England. First came Conant and the 
old planters to Gloucester, then to Salem. Next came 
Captain Endicott with the advance guard of "The 
Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." 
In June, 1630, Winthrop arrived, bearing the charter 
which our fathers guarded so carefully as the Magna 
Charta of their liberties. 

From 1630 to 1640 the immigration of Puritans 
continued to these shores. Then the current ceased 
to flow, for the success of the Parliament in the 
struggle with the Crown brightened the prospects of 
the good men at home, and some, like Hugh Peters 
of Salem, returned for service under Cromwell and 
for martyrdom under the Restoration. 

Of that amazing religious movement, which had 
its freest scope and fullest development among our 
own people of Massachusetts, an immense and ever- 
increasing literature has been created. 

The pens of men and women of all shades of view, 
narrow and broad, have found increasing fascination 
in the story of the initiation, struggles, development 
and consequences of Puritanism. 

208 



of Old Lynn 

The founders of Massachusetts were the most 
profoundly steeped in religion of any people in the 
world ; they were the most humble in sight of God, 
but they were exceedingly proud before man — hence 
they conquered themselves first and the world later. 

Our people were closely allied, by blood, political 
creed and religious belief, with the Puritans of Eng- 
land, who were discontented under the restoration 
of Charles II. Charles and his ministers early dis- 
covered that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a 
thorn in his side. He was in a wrangle with the 
Colony all through his reign. The Charter was 
finally vacated October 23, 1684. Charles died Feb- 
ruary 15, 1685. James II was proclaimed in Boston 
April 20, 1685. The Colony was without a charter. 

The disposition of the new king was unknown, 
but feared. The gifted, but much disliked, Edward 
Randolph, the evil genius of the Colony, who had 
been an important factor in the overthrow of our 
Charter, was here. There was an interregnum, a 
troubled season of waiting. 

On September 29, 1686, James, under the great 
seal, cast the thunderbolt by making the astute Sir 
Edmund Andros Governor-General of New England. 
December 20th he landed in Boston and published 
his commission. Edward Randolph was Secretary. 
These men were hated more than any other two men 
who ever came to these shores. The attempt of 
Randolph, whose covetous eyes had looked upon the 
beauties of Nahant, to steal it from the inhabitants 
of Lynn, had excited intense indignation and was 

209 



Hearths and Homes 

the main public topic of discussion in Lynn for years. 
Many were the devices which our long-headed fathers 
adopted to foil Andros and Randolph. One, and an 
ingenious one it was, set up the Indians as owners 
of the soil against the prerogative of the King of 
England. Then they persuaded the Indians to con- 
vey their supposed titles to the planters, generally 
in their collective capacity. 

The Salem deed conveys to the Selectmen and 
Trustees for the Town of Salem " for the sole use, 
benefit and behoof of the Proprietors in and pur- 
chasers of y e township of Salem." The Lynn deed 
runs " to the Trustees and Prudentials in behalf of 
the Proprietors." Each of the town deeds was for 
a consideration of twenty pounds. The date of the 
Salem deed was October 11, 1686, and the acknowl- 
edgment was of the same day. The Lynn deed bears 
date September 4, 1686, but does not appear to have 
been acknowledged until May 31, 1687. The deeds 
were executed before a noted settler, Bartholomew 
Gedney of the King's Council. Felt, in his "Annals 
of Salem," notes a fact which is apparent to other 
observers, namely, that there is a lack of uniformity 
in the orthography of the original deeds, particularly 
as to the Indian names. 

The motive in procuring these releases is seen in 
a conversation in March, 1689. Andros and some of 
his friends called upon the Rev. Mr. Higginson, the 
Minister of Salem. Andros asks the latter whether 
the territory of New England does not belong to 
the King. The reply is in the negative, because the 

210 



of Old Lynn 

Colonists own it by right of just occupation and by 
purchase from the Indians. 

In the course of debate Andros says, with warmth, 
" Either you are his subjects or you are rebels," 
intimating that if the people did not yield their lands 
to His Majesty, take new grants and pay rents for 
them, they should be treated as rebels. 

Andros claimed that on the forfeiture of the 
Charter all lands reverted to the Crown, and that 
the owners, to hold them legally, must take out 
patents of confirmation from the new government. 
A schedule of forms and fees was arranged by which 
his friends were to be enriched. The commons of 
several of the towns were seized and given to his 
followers, notably the Ten Hill Farm of nine hundred 
acres in Charlestown, given to Lieut.-Col. Lidgett, to 
be held under the Crown at a nominal rent, the details 
of which are fully set forth by Frothingham in his 
recital of the petty tyranny of Andros. While Andros 
was thus scheming for the overthrow of the rights 
of the Colonists, events in the mother country were 
changing the destinies of the English race. 

William of Orange, of blessed memory, landed in 
England. William and Mary became King and Queen. 

News of the deposition of James reached Boston 
April 18, 1689. The hour of vengeance had come at 
last. The Colony rose in arms, imprisoned Andros 
and Randolph, and the usurpation of New England 
was at an end. The sturdy planters of Essex County 
had an important share in that drama of freedom. 
It was the most eventful epoch of the Colony down 

211 



Hearths and Homes 

to the American Revolution. There is in the Lam- 
beth Palace, at London, among the papers of the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, a manuscript account of 
the uprising, said to be in the handwriting of Randolph 
himself. 
The writer says : — 

"April 19th, about 11 o'clock, the country came in, 
headed by one Shepard, teacher, of Lynn, who were 
like so many wild bears, and the leader, mad with 
passion, more savage than any of his followers. All 
the cry was for the Governor and Mr. Randolph." 

July 24, 1689, Randolph wrote from jail to the 
Lords of Trade, "All things are carried on by a furi- 
ous rabble animated by y e crafty ministers." 

Those old Puritan pastors, in spite of their brim- 
stone preaching, were men raised up to lead in the 
wilderness. They were the apostles of the modern 
civilization. This Jeremiah Shepard had a stormy 
and turbulent career in his earlier years as a minister 
at Rowley and Ipswich. That training stood him in 
good stead in later years in the Andros crisis. In 
that year of grace he was not only the spiritual 
guide, but also Lynn's member of the General Court 
and leader of its physical force. He was Pastor, 
Legislator and Captain. That his muscular and men- 
tal fibre were adapted to the locality is manifest from 
the fact that he died here with the harness on in 
1720, forty years after his settlement. 

April 17, 1629, a letter, dated at Gravesend, was 
written by the Governor and Deputy of the Company 

212 






of Old Lynn 

in England to Mr. Endicott. In it was the following 
advice : — 

" If any of the Saluages pretend right of inherit- 
ance to all or any part of the lands, graunted in our 
Pattent, we pray you endeavour to purchase their 
tytle, that we may avoid the least scruple of intrusion." 

It is true there were frequent troubles with the 
Indians, but this deed was given ten years after 
Governor Josiah Winslow had sent Charles II the 
"best of our spoyles of the Sachem Phillip, taken by 
Capt. Benjamin Church when he was slayne by him, 
being his crowne, his gorge, and two belts of their 
own making of their gould and silver." King Philip 
and his warriors were far from our vicinity, away off 
on the borders of Rhode Island. The next Indian 
outbreak was as far away as Wells in Maine. This 
happened in the spring of 1690. So that the tardy 
compliance with the Governor's advice to Mr. Endi- 
cott was not dictated by any nearby danger from the 
Indians, who, so far as any tribal power went, were 
remote. It is also hardly reasonable that the Colon- 
ists, after sixty years of undisturbed possession of 
the soil, had awakened to consciousness of the prior 
rights of a savage race whom they had learned to 
despise hereabouts from their scant numbers, but 
were alert to send their fighting men hundreds of 
miles into the wilderness to hunt down and exter- 
minate as they did wolves and other marauders. 

The second generation — the sons of the compan- 
ions of Winthrop and Endicott, the first generation 

213 



Hearths and Homes 

of American-born Englishmen, the sons who had 
helped their fathers clear the wilderness and estab- 
lish homes in the new world — had come into pos- 
session of their heritage. After the struggle with 
Nature, after the fathers had yielded the burdens 
of pioneer life to the stalwart sons, and the mortal 
part of many had been tenderly laid away in God's 
Acre in each little hamlet, no sentimental considera- 
tion of justice, no fear of personal danger from the 
scattered aborigines, moved these hardy first-born 
sons of English-Americans to carry out the injunction 
given their fathers by the company in England. It 
was rather one of the early lessons in the school of 
independence which culminated in the clash of arms 
in the next century at Lexington and Bunker Hill. 
It was one in an unbroken series of happenings from 
their first arrival, which demonstrate the purpose of 
our ancestors to found a Puritan Commonwealth, 
independent alike of the English Church and the 
English Crown. Were they seers who could pene- 
trate the veil of futurity and witness the marvelous 
growth of the greater England which they planted ? 

This cycle of eighty-six years from the accession 
of James I to the deposition and flight of his grand- 
son and namesake, of whom it can be truthfully said 
that there is hardly a sovereign mentioned in history 
of whom one can find less good to say, embraces the 
whole period of Stuart rule in England. In the 
language of royalty the reigns of these four Stuarts, 
James I, Charles I, Charles II and James II had been 
continuous. 

214 



of Old Lynn 

In fact, there had been an important interregnum, 
when England was ruled by Oliver Cromwell, the 
greatest all-round man whom the English race has 
produced. During the struggles at home between 
King and Parliament, befriended by Cromwell and 
the Commonwealth of England, the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts had waxed strong. 

Then came eighty-six years under the Hanoverian 
dynasty and a government at home of Ministers and 
here of a Council and General Court, comparatively 
free, but nominally under a series of royal Governors 
who did not find their positions sinecures. The igno- 
rance of the Ministers of George of the temper of 
the people of the Colonies, the Stamp Act, and taxa- 
tion without representation, brought about that other 
mysterious cycle day, the 19th of April, 1775, when 
armed resistance — the ordeal of battle — enforced 
what Winthrop and the Colony of the Massachusetts 
Bay in New England meant when they landed in 
Salem in June, 1630 — absolute freedom from old 
world rule. 

The fourth great cycle day of New England was 
the 19th of April, 1861, when the men of the Sixth 
Massachusetts Regiment were fired upon in the streets 
of Baltimore. The blood shed on that day was the 
opening of the most gigantic contest of arms of the 
modern world. No man at its beginning was wise 
enough to see that out of the sacrifices of that war 
was to come the abolition of chattel slavery of human 
beings on the western continent — and in the world 
among white men, save in South Africa ; and even 

215 



Hearths and Homes 

there British guns are to-day sounding its death- 
knell. War is a stern teacher, but civilization and 
human progress will follow Lord Roberts' triumph as 
surely in South Africa as they did after Sherman's 
march to the sea and Grant's crowning victory at 
Appomattox. 

In conclusion, I may sum up the turning events of 
these four striking periods, upon the first and second 
of which I have more fully touched, as they are more 
remote and less apt to be enlarged upon : — 

March 24, 1603, the great Queen died. On the 
19th of April her crooked successor, James Stuart, 
was just half way from Scotland to London on his 
journey to assume the crown. The Stuart applica- 
tion of the doctrine of the divine right of kings to 
absolute rule filled the sails of the Mayflower till she 
landed the immortal band of Pilgrims on Plymouth 
Rock, and directed the course of the Puritans to 
Massachusetts Bay. Eighty-six years from that day, 
on April 19, 1689, news having arrived in Boston of 
the deposition of the last of Stuart Kings, the men 
of Massachusetts arose in righteous indignation and 
imprisoned his Governor and tool — New England's 
tyrant — Sir Edmond Andros. Eighty-six years again 
passed, and on the historic 19th of April, 1775, " the em- 
battled farmers fired the shot heard round the world," 
on Lexington Green, and the first blood was shed in 
the War of the Revolution. Again eighty-six years 
revolve, and another portent is seen on the same 
remarkable date, April 19, 1861, when the first blood 
is shed in the streets of Baltimore — the blood of 

216 



of Old Lynn 

Massachusetts men — the opening of the gigantic 
slaveholders' Rebellion. 

Here are four cycles of eighty-six years, each with 
its initial and dramatic movement upon the 19th of 
April. There is no day in the calendar of Massachu- 
setts that can be compared with this great cycle day. 
These four events are the very hinges of the crises 
of our existence as a civilized community. The first 
is the compelling influence in the planting of the 
Colony ; the second is the overthrow of prelacy and 
despotism ; the third is the resort to arms against 
the Crown ; and the last is the purification by offer- 
ing upon the altar of sacrifice its heroic sons that the 
nation might live. This is a most curious historic 
cycle. Surely every loyal son of Massachusetts has 
an equal right to be proud of the 19th of April, and 
to make his gladness known of all men upon that day. 



217 



ESSEX FARMS: 1 
The Cradles of American Homes. 




|HOREAU, the keen observer, the philosopher 
of Nature, walking along the southern expo- 
sure of his neighbor's hill-top on a first day 
of March, noted in his journal : — 

" It is spring there, and Minot is puttering outside 
in the sun. How wise in his grandfather to select 
such a site for his house." 

The Essex Agricultural Society, the honored guild 
of the farmers of Essex, has had a corporate exist- 
ence of seventy-five years, having been incorporated 
in 1818. 

To-day occurs the seventieth annual address. The 
psalmist says that " three score years and ten are the 
length of man's days." The unbounded vitality of 
our Society after seventy-five years of usefulness is 
a striking reversal of Shakespeare's aphorism, " The 
evil that men do lives after them." We can say 
- the good that men do lives after them. 

At such a milestone perhaps we may rest for one 



1 Essex Agricultural Society, at Haverhill, Mass., Thursday, 
September 21, 1893. 

219 



Hearths and Homes 

day from learned discussions and philosophical essays 
and glance back over the way we have traveled and 
then forward to see what lies before us. 

There is a fraternity of race blood in this Society 
which may not be apparent to outsiders. Strangers 
may query why so many names appear as the authors 
of annual addresses who are not practical farmers. 
The point cannot be better illustrated than here in 
this ancient and historic Haverhill. 

A few years since, an instructive address was 
delivered by your brilliant young District Attorney. 1 
Readers of the wonderful self-revealing "Diary" of 
Chief Justice Samuel Sewall — the brave Witchcraft 
Judge, who publicly acknowledged his error — him- 
self an Essex man, will appreciate the interest which 
the sons take in the affairs of the old County. Sew- 
all's " Diary " abounds in references to Brother Moody, 
and whoever bears in his veins the Colonial blood of 
the Sewalls and Moodys must respond to the call for 
service from his kin. 

Sewall's " Diary " also lovingly dwells upon many 
cherished visits at Brother Northend's. Hence a 
descendant of Brother Northend of the old stock, 
going out to Nature for strength for forensic toils, 
came to the Society with words of experience. 2 

Another man of our own time, whose family lines 
run back to the planting of the Colony, whose genial 



1 William H. Moody, now Attorney General of the United States. 

2 The late Hon. William Dummer Northend, author of " The Bay 
Colony." 

220 



of Old Lynn 

presence has been a benison to our annual gatherings 
— the beloved Sheriff — has been a welcome speaker. 1 

Timothy Pickering, who delivered the first address 
and was the organizer and first President of this 
Society, may not be called a practical farmer, but 
every fibre of his being was in close touch with the 
men of the soil who made Essex County historic 
ground. 

Before the tragic scenes at Lexington and Concord 
had startled the world, Col. Timothy Pickering and 
the men of Salem had made (February 28, 1775) the 
first armed resistance to British aggression at the 
old North Bridge. In February, the men of Salem 
and Marblehead struck the key-note, which, in April, 
resounded from Middlesex. 

Colonel Pickering was Postmaster General, Secre- 
tary of War and Secretary of State in the cabinets 
of Washington and Adams. Later, he was Chief 
Justice of the Essex County Court of Common Pleas, 
United States Senator and Representative in Congress 
from the Essex District. 

He rounded out a long and useful career by pro- 
moting and organizing the Society under whose aus- 
pices we are assembled to-day. Under his call the 
first meeting was held at Cyrus Cummings' tavern, at 
Topsfield, on the 16th day of February, 1818. Ichabod 
Tucker was chosen Moderator, and David Cummings, 
Secretary ; these, with John Adams, Paul Kent and 



1 The late Hon. Horatio G. Herrick, for many years Sheriff of 
Essex. 

221 



Hearths and Homes 

Elisha Mack, were appointed a committee to re- 
port a plan of organization. Timothy Pickering- 
was chosen President ; and William Bartlett, Dr. 
Thomas Kittredge, John Heard and Ichabod Tucker, 
Vice-Presidents ; Leverett Saltonstall, Secretary ; and 
Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland, Treasurer. Timothy Pick- 
ering was annually chosen President for ten years, to 
1829, when he again delivered the annual address. 

Colonel Pickering was followed by Andrew Nichols, 
the botanist, the beloved physician of Danvers. 

Then came that liberal preacher, the Rev. Abiel 
Abbott, of Beverly, of whom President Monroe said 
that he was the best talker he ever knew. 

From that day on the clergymen have done their 
share of the talking, as was eminently fit in a society 
of Puritan descent. I shall not presume to speak of 
the living, so I pass by the present pastor of the 
First Church (the Village Church) of Danvers, and 
mention his predecessor, the sturdy leader of Ortho- 
dox thought, the preacher of the faith of the fathers, 
the Rev. Milton P. Braman. And there is also re- 
called that pious scholar, wit and humorist, the Rev. 
Dr. Leonard Withington, of Newbury, who described 
himself as "a modified Calvinist." 

The Bar has been drawn upon for its leaders from 
"the silver-tongued" James H. Duncan, and his 
cousin, the courtly Leverett Saltonstall, to the time 
of Judge Otis P. Lord and Gen. Benjamin F. Butler. 
Caleb Cushing obeyed your call, he, of whom Isaac 0. 
Barnes wittily and truthfully said : " There is a living 
self-moving cyclopedia, from whom you can obtain 



of Old Lynn 

information upon every question that has interested 
any people in any age of the world." 

Gen. Henry K. Oliver, the versatile, the teacher, 
the sweet singer, the mayor of two cities, made his 
contribution, and the fluent, ever-ready Dr. George B. 
Loring was here, as everywhere among farmers, the 
popular favorite, for he delivered the annual address 
on three occasions. 

This is not a catalogue of names of those who have 
addressed the Society, but I cannot refrain from 
naming two who were zealous in the cause of intelli- 
gent forestry. Ben : Perley Poore made Indian Hill 
a magnet that drew wits, savants, and practical men 
of affairs from the world over. Richard S. Fay made 
Lynnmere an earthly paradise. He created a forest 
which has become a profitable woodland. It is a 
stately memorial of the taste and genius of a man 
who was devoted to the development of agriculture. 

The actual farmers who have followed the calling- 
nearest to Nature as a vocation, to which other mat- 
ters were mere avocations, have been prominent. 

Although honors came to such men as Hon. Daniel 
P. King, Gen. Josiah Newhall and Hon. Asa Tarbell 
Newhall, enthusiastic devotion to and skilled direction 
of the farm were paramount and sufficient. 

Hon. Asa T. Newhall is recorded as delivering the 
address in 1849, and again in 1884 ; but of course you 
know as well as I that it was not the old Squire who 
addressed you in the latter year, but his grandson of 
the same name and inherited talents, who now makes 
hay while the sun shines on the home farm. Verily, 



Hearths and Homes 

the sons find it pleasant to tread the paths of labor 
and of honor in the footsteps of respected sires. 

These are but representative names in the galaxy 
of Essex men who have addressed this Society. 
Every address has been carefully prepared, and a 
vast variety of interesting topics have been discussed. 

A collection of the whole would make a valuable 
library for an intelligent household. 

I should shrink from being added to this list if I 
did not feel that the honor came to me, not as a 
personal one, but as a recognition of a family whose 
successive generations have tilled the soil on the 
intervales of Saugus River from the planting of the 
Colony to the present day. Members of this family 
are active in the councils of the Society, and I am 
grateful to be allowed to link my name with those 
who have gone before me as an active member of 
the Essex Agricultural Society. 

This Society is old enough to have made for itself 
an enviable history, but Essex agriculture had a 
world-renowned origin long before the days of 
Colonel Pickering and his worthy associates. The 
first page of the first volume of " The Records of the 
Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in 
New England " bears a memorandum supposed to be 
in the handwriting of Mr. Washborne, the first Secre- 
tary of the Company, which is pregnant with and 
significant of a great event in the world's history. 
Its date is March 16 (the year unknown), probably 
1628. If so, Endicott had not sailed. Winthrop 
would not depart for two years. 

224 



of Old Lynn 

Without any verbiage or sentimentality in a matter- 
of-fact paper, it reveals without the need of comment 
or concordance what the company thought were prime 
objects and necessities in the great scheme of emi- 
gration. 

I quote from the memorandum : - 

To provide to send for Newe England : 
Ministers ; 
Pattent vnder seale ; 
A seale ; 

Wheate, rye, barly, oates, a hhed. of ech in the eare ; 
benes, pease ; 

Stones of all sorts of fruites, as peaches, plums, fil- 
berts, cherries ; 
Peare, aple, quince kernells, pomegranats ; 
Saffron heads ; 

Liquorice seed, rootes sent ; & Madder rootes ; 
Potatoes ; 
Hoprootes ; 
Hempseede ; 

Flaxe seede, agenst wynter ; 
Connys ; 
Currant plants ; 
Tame Turkeys ; 

In that London chamber, with all the signs ominous 
of the Puritan revolt, Mathew Cradock, Thomas Goffe, 
Isaac Johnson, Sir Richard Saltonstall, John Humfrey, 
John Winthrop and their associates, with amazing- 
shrewdness, yet in Christian humility, planned one 
of the epochs in the world's history. 

First, of course, they selected ministers — the spirit- 
ual guides and comforters of the flock. 

Secondly, they agreed to send over the Charter - 
the patent under seal. This instrument they regarded 

22.". 



Hearths and Homes 

as their "Magna Charta," something which was to 
give them powers of government which Charles and 
his advisers never dreamed of when it was granted. 

Having provided for the religious and civil govern- 
ment, the next consideration was to stock the intend- 
ing colony with choice seeds for planting in the new 
soil. 

The list was comprehensive— it embraced every- 
thing which was thought of value. From it one fact 
stands out boldly, namely, that the founders con- 
templated an agricultural and not a commercial 
community. The renown and wealth which came 
later from the fisheries, from commerce and then 
from manufactures, were not foreseen. 

The farmers have maintained the Canaan of the 
fathers, and, looking upon the exhibit of this fair, 
may we query if it is not about time for Essex 
farmers to bury the silly question, Does farming 
pay? and to ask instead, How many things besides 
the glitter of gold make it profitable? 

It is time to cease to bewail the hard lot of the 
tillers of the soil. It is in order to tell the world 
that our fathers did not find here a bleak and barren 
land. There is not a farmer in Essex County who 
deserves success who does not achieve it. Conditions 
change and our farmers adapt themselves to the new 
demands. It may be that the great West can pro- 
duce our well-beloved Indian corn cheaper than we 
can upon our smaller areas, but the compensation 
is sure to be found in less work and more profit in 
our milk, butter and cheese and nearness to markets. 

2-26 



of Old Lynn 

The free air of farm life does not alone fill the 
lungs with life-giving oxygen, and harden the mus- 
cles ; it makes and develops the brain that is to guide 
the affairs of men. Some time ago it was the fashion 
to apologize for Abraham Lincoln's lack of training. 
Short-sighted mortals. All the colleges in the world 
could not have so equipped him for the peculiar work 
he was raised up to accomplish as the out-of-doors 
frontier life, which, under the Divine plan, was 
appointed him. 

Rufus Choate, whom, Peleg W. Chandler in a 
memorial address before the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society styled "a glorified Yankee," was born on 
Hog Island in our good town of Essex. 

The name, Hog Island, is not particularly attrac- 
tive, but the spot itself is a singularly beautiful one. 
The swift in-pouring tides of the ocean rush by it up 
the Essex River. Long reaches of gleaming sand 
bars lie at its feet. The blue Atlantic beats ever- 
lastingly against its rocky headlands. 

A plain old homestead with its broad inherited 
acres on the bluff was an ideal home for a contem- 
plative man, as the farmer, watching the procession 
of the seasons, is apt to be. The sense of environ- 
ment entered the brain of the possessor of that old 
farm as he held the plough or swung the scythe. 
With such surroundings, with temperate life, with 
the serenity that goes with the ownership of the soil, 
man raises better crops than grass or vegetables, 
better stock than Holsteins or Jerseys ; he begets 
children of brains. Of such Rufus Choate was a type. 



Hearths and Homes 

And the annals of the County are resplendent 
with like examples of boys and girls born in the 
low-studded comfortable houses that antedated those 
monstrosities in a northern climate — the so-called 
Queen Anne houses — who have gone forth to charm 
the world and tell whether or not farming pays. 

The Puritan exodus from England to Massachu- 
setts Bay was the most wisely conceived and the 
most grandly executed scheme of colonization that 
the annals of the human race relate. The van-guard 
of the peaceful army of occupation, which Endicott 
and Winthrop and Saltonstall and Dudley and Dum- 
mer led into Essex County, was carefully made up 
of the flower of the " country party " of England. 
Men did not come alone. They brought their wives 
and children with them. They were a select class 
of God-fearing, thinking men, who made the parish 
meeting-house the center of temporal as well as of 
spiritual affairs, from which everything radiated. 
No drones and no paupers were allowed to come. 
The wise heads who directed the movement sent 
out the exact proportion of blacksmiths, weavers, 
tanners, millers and husbandmen needed to develop 
the country. 

There was no crowding, no reckless strife to reach 
the goal of wealth at the expense of one's fellows. 
When the coast line became dotted with parishes, 
a minister of the Gospel led a little flock inland and 
obtained a grant for a new plantation. Where else 
could this sturdy stock have found elements so adapted 
to founding a new civilization and a better home ? 

228 



of Old Lynn 

The people who pity us say that our soil is rocky — 
with swamps and forests — that our climate is bleak. 
They forget that Christ was born in a cave in rocky 
Judea — that the crags of bonny Scotland gave voice 
to the genius of Robert Burns and Walter Scott — 
that romance, chivalry and prowess in all eras have 
come down out of the hill countries. What would 
have become of the song of our Whittier if he had 
been shut up inside city walls or on a dull, endless 
flat land ? 

The fathers appreciated the woods, even if the 
age did people them with demons. With the town 
lot and the tillage land each householder had set 
apart to him a wood lot. This wood lot furnished 
materials to build the house that has sheltered the 
planter's children even to this day. And it, by the 
kindness of Nature, renews itself every generation, 
so that the same wood keeps his children's children 
warm and happy, which sparkled and blazed in the 
original fire-place. 

The great salt marshes were awaiting the English- 
man's scythe and his cattle, as they have every fall 
from that day to this. Frost and snow mantled the 
earth in winter, but both, as we know, are agencies 
under a benign Providence working for the tiller of 
the soil. The snow has as necessary a place in the 
economy of Nature in the night of the year, as the 
sun, in the day of the year. Even the loose stones 
in the earth, that others would have considered 
a curse, were to our foreseeing fathers a blessing 
in disguise. For in the very first generation the 

229 



Hearths and Homes 

yeoman and his boys constructed many miles of 

the ugly, yet enduring, stone walls that still stand 

- monuments alike of the thrift and grit of the 

founders and the loyalty of the sons of the soil. 

Facilities for education are important factors in 
deciding whether the calling that is followed is 
profitable. The mind must be fed as well as the 
body, else one is poor indeed, though with unlimited 
gold. The founders of Essex County brought with 
the pastor, his colleague, the teacher. Amidst the 
broadening influences of this virgin soil, the Puritan 
evolved the highest instrumentality in the growth 
of man — the common school. It was not possible 
under the old world forms of government and 
thought. The mediaeval ecclesiastic fears it more 
than all the potentates of earth combined, and 
a threat against it sounds the alarm which unites 
all loyal Americans. The common school had its 
birth here, and here it has flourished and is to-day 
the model for all enlightened states. 

In the south gallery of the Manufactures and 
Liberal Arts Building at the World's Columbian 
Exposition hangs a map, which is attracting as 
much if not more attention than any other exhibit 
in the building. It is a map of immense proportions 
and shows the number of schools that each city and 
town in Massachusetts has established and is support- 
ing. People from all parts of the United States have 
seen it and pronounced it the most wonderful exhibit 
yet produced. No other state — in fact, no other 
country — can produce anything equal to it. 

230 



of Old Lynn 

As early as 1635, our towns established schools, 
supporting them in various ways, by subscriptions, 
by endowments, by grants of income from the com- 
mon stock lands, by fishing privileges, by tuition 
fees, by direct taxation, and they have been steadily 
climbing to the top. At no time has the work been 
relaxed. And now, Massachusetts leads the world in 
educational privileges. 

Of this map the director of education of the State 
of New York is reported to have said to E. C. Hovey, 
Chairman of the Massachusetts World's Fair Com- 
mission : " If New York State could show a map 
such as that I would be willing to throw our entire 
exhibit into Lake Michigan. There is nothing which 
equals it." 

George H. Martin's descriptive account of our 
schools accompanying the map shows that from its 
beginning the State has had a complete system of 
public elementary schools, secondary schools, and the 
college. The second century of the educational his- 
tory of the State is marked by an effort to adapt the 
school system to the needs of a widely scattered agri- 
cultural population. On this map our County stands 
second to none among the Counties of the State. 

When you think of the great farms of the northwest 
and are inclined to repine because you cannot make 
such haste to get rich, look upon the other side of the 
shield. Set your schools against the hordes of foreign 
immigrants, who, in some of the farming states are 
controlling legislation against teaching English and 
against the existence of the common school itself. 

231 



Hearths and Homes 

Your children's priceless privileges weigh down the 
scale of advantages solidly upon your side. 

Of the foundation of these schools, Lord Macaulay 
once said in parliament : — 

"Illustrious forever in history were the founders 
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; though 
their love of freedom of conscience was illimitable 
and indestructible, they could see nothing servile 
or degrading in the principle that the State should 
take upon itself the charge of the education of 
the people. In the year 1642, they passed their 
first legislative enactment on this subject, in the 
preamble of which they distinctly pledged them- 
selves to this principle, that education was a matter 
of the deepest possible importance and the greatest 
possible interest to all nations and to all communi- 
ties, and that as such it was, in an eminent degree, 
deserving of the peculiar attention of the State." 

The matter of race has much to do with success 
in farming. Down to the Revolution, the people 
of New England were, almost without exception, of 
pure English blood. The same statement is nearly 
as true to-day of the farmers of Essex County. As 
distinctive as the worship of the crocodile by the 
dwellers on the Nile, or the adoration of the god 
of war by the Romans, has ever been the Anglo- 
Saxon reverence for land. 

With love of the land there is also associated 
regard and veneration for trees. It is true that 
the fathers waged war upon the forests, but that 
was a necessity of their situation. They wanted 
the sunshine to warm their virgin soil. They needed 

232 



of Old Lynn 

the wood for fuel, for rafters, sills and boards. 
Besides the requirement of cleared lands for culti- 
vation, there was ever the thought that the clearings 
made so many less lurking places for the skulking 
red Indian, who was always a peril in the shadows 
of the forest. 

So far as we may properly go without being- 
charged with the sin of idolatry, we Americans are 
tree worshipers. It is perfectly natural for us to 
be so. It is bred in our bone. It is an inheritance 
from our English ancestors. The Romans, who made 
a strong impression on the native tribes of England, 
venerated trees, erected temples in their groves and 
ordained sacrifices in their honor. The Druids lived 
in them, as it was thought more sacred to dwell 
under trees and about their rock altars than in the 
open plains. 

Trees are our most striking evidence in material 
things of our immortal life. We plant them and 
they live on far beyond our lives. In planting them 
we think not so much of ourselves as of the future 
generations. The myriad voices of the trees speak 
to us in the same tones that they did to our fathers 
in the past and as they will to our children in future 
ages. 

The magnificent Waverly oaks were mature trees 
when the keel of the Mayflower touched the gleam- 
ing sands of Plymouth Harbor. The south wind 
played the same soothing melodies through their 
branches then as now, though the Indian, whose 
moccasins noiselessly trod the sward at their feet, 

233 



Hearths and Homes 

has vanished from the face of the earth and the 
humble Pilgrim from Leyden has inspired and 
created the greatest nation of the civilized world. 
The old trees saw the red man and the Englishman 
play their parts and are still sturdy — as well they 
need be — while they listen to the polyglot tongues 
that now babble around them. 

Seasons come and go, leaves ripen and fall, buds 
unfold into leaf and blossom, but the tree grows on 
and on and recks not that the white-headed old man 
who thoughtfully reposes in its shade is the same 
person who sported beneath its limbs in childhood's 
merry hours. 

In the good work of quickening an interest in 
forestry, this Society has held an advanced position, 
and among individuals interested, its present Presi- 
dent * is easily leader. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the greatest story teller of 
New England lore, tenderly related his journeyings 
in "Our Old Home." Do we realize that while old 
England is the old home to those of the stock who 
have remained hereabouts, there is a vastly greater 
company of the descendants of people of New England 
birth who have found new homes in the great West, 
even to the Golden Gate on the Pacific ? To all these 
millions, Massachusetts and Essex County are the old 
home. The standard elms and the south-facing, long, 
sloping, back-roofed houses with the great stack of 
chimneys in the centre, to all these people are home 
and history and the starting point of family lines. 

1 General Francis H. Appleton. 

234 



of Old Lynn 

Over in Quincy, in such houses as are identical in 
form and construction and surroundings with hun- 
dreds in Essex County, the two Presidents of the 
United States, of Massachusetts birth, were born. 

In Danvers, the room in which Israel Putnam was 
born is kept just as it was when the tough old ranger 
first saw the light. The whole County is dotted 
with these old earth-hugging houses upon which the 
storms of bleak winters have beaten, in vain, for 
centuries. 

To-day at Chicago nothing wins more praise and 
admiration than the John Hancock house, and it is 
said that the Colonial exhibit in the Massachusetts 
department exceeds in interest anything of the kind 
in the Fair, and that the old bureaus, the old bed- 
steads, and the models of the old houses to be found 
there have a grace and beauty in point of size, and 
model, and execution, that is not reached in the 
greater part of our modern furniture or our modern 
dwellings. 

These houses are to be found along the New Eng- 
land coast from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, to Wells, 
in Maine. But there are more of them in Essex 
County than anywhere else, more even than in Ply- 
mouth or Middlesex. They are historic houses of 
America, and, as a well-known writer says, they 
express both the English freedom of the seventeenth 
century and the regard for comfort and security 
and strength which our New England fathers were 
obliged to consider when they built homes of their 
own. 

23o 



Hearths and Homes 

They were wisely built by men who knew the cli- 
mate and by men who were founding families. They 
overlooked the broad acres which their builders had 
redeemed from the wilderness. Square, prim and 
strong, admirably adapted to the age in which they 
were built, time has mellowed their surroundings and 
made them one and all picturesque and important 
adjuncts in every hamlet in the County. Every 
one is full of the traditions and history of its long- 
departed occupants and of the people. 

From the windows of that house a child saw the 
gray-stockinged young farmers from Danvers tarry 
for a drink from the bucket in the well on the fateful 
morning of the 19th of April, 1775. The child look- 
ing from the windows saw upon the return from 
Lexington a sad sight for youthful eyes and for the 
mourners, though Liberty on that day was born. The 
child saw the gray-stockinged forms cold in death as 
the rumbling wagons bore their sacred burdens back 
to wailing families. That child never forgot the 
scene, and in old age used to tell the story to younger 
people, and he 1 who heard it from her lips was him- 
self an old man when he related it to me. 

Scenes a hundred years prior to Lexington have 
these old houses seen. Upon the bank of the North 
River, in the midst of the sloping fields, where to-day 
the September sun is ripening farmer Jacobs' crops, 
stands the substantial house with the surroundings 
practically as they were when its master, George 

1 Hon. Samuel M. Bubier. 

230 



...yy- y 





The Flagg-Gray House, 

Marion Street, south of Boston Street, birthplace of Lieutenant-Governor William Gray, 

about to be torn down by a syndicate of Hebrews, who have 

purchased it. to be replaced by tenement houses. 



of Old Lynn 

Jacobs — Saint George of old Northfields as we call 
him now — was led away for shameful death in the 
dark days of the witchcraft troubles in 1692. 

Here in Haverhill your late public-spirited fellow- 
citizen, James H. Carleton, did a characteristic and 
noble deed, when, in his life-time — not making it an 
after-death benefaction — he secured the preserva- 
tion of the birth-place of the sweet poet whose 
rhymed lines are in closest touch with the finest 
expression of New England life. Whittier is the 
immortal flower of rural New England. Mr. Carleton 
has made this plain farm-house the Mecca towards 
which throngs of lovers of the poet will be drawn 
and say with him : — 

"Nor farm-house with its maple shade, 
Or rigid poplar colonnade, 
But lies distinct and full in sight, 
Beneath this gush of sunset light." 

The builders of these houses were brothers to the 
regicides across the sea. They were Commonwealth 
men. They were the advanced liberals of the age. 
They, at home, had dreamed of establishing beyond 
the ocean a greater England, freed from feudalism, 
prelacy and kingcraft. While they were setting up 
their Puritan theocracy, growing attached to the 
new homes, the experiment of the Commonwealth 
was tried in England and was lost when the great 
Cromwell died. 

The profligate reign of Charles the Second and the 
bigoted reign of James the Second, were followed by 



Hearths and Homes 

the great Revolution of 1689, which brought in the 
Dutch William. And then came the day of the 
intriguing and venal place hunters of the reign of 
Anne. 

The Protestant Revolution of 1689, did well enough 
for conservative England, but the more radical Bay 
Colony had learned to walk alone. It wanted no 
Queen Anne houses with chimneys on the outside. 
These were adapted to negro quarters in the sunny 
South, but not for our north country. An American 
architecture had been evolved. American thought 
had been created, and from then on, our fathers 
planned for emancipation from the political yoke. 

Let us not learn from strangers to appreciate the 
historic value nor the substantial use of the stout 
houses that are gems set in the grassy lanes of old 
Essex, but let us so care for them as to make them 
still more attractive to the wanderer who returns to 
the home of his people. 

It is almost striking to observe the traits and 
features of one generation repeated in its successors 
in a locality where the people have become fixed in 
their habits and are acclimated to their surroundings. 
Such resemblances are striking in English counties, 
in France, and in other localities where man and the 
climate and the soil harmonize. These conditions 
seem to be fast attached to our County. If the art 
of photography had existed in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the portrait of the first settler of what is now 
Middleton would have been a good likeness of the 
thrifty farmer of Middleton who took prizes for his 



of Old Lynn 

stock at recent cattle shows. The same rule holds 
throughout the County. The same names prosper 
upon the same acres. They are still the deacons 
and selectmen and possessors of fat pocket-books, 
filled by working brains into the ancestral — rough 
it may be — but loved acres. 

The Charter granted the land to the Colony of the 
Massachusetts Bay in New England in fee. The 
Colony gave the same kind of title to towns, com- 
moners and individuals, free from Old World services 
and limitations. 

Out of this absolute holding of land grew an 
independent yeomanry, which in the fulness of 
time stormed Louisburg, the Gibraltar of France in 
America, and a generation later defied England's 
power on Bunker Hill. 

Such men — the men of the town meeting — the 
men who made America the shining example of 
human development — came from the stock of owners 
and tillers of the soil. 

A peasantry never accomplished such results. A 
peasantry may tear down, but never build up. Wher- 
ever man owns his farm, his garden, or his house, it 
is safe to say that modern Nationalism — the scheme 
of having a paternal government own everything 
and regulate every man's labor, will not be popular. 
Such doctrines will scarcely take root in Essex County. 

The general holding of farms in this County for 
two hundred and fifty years in family line, in fee 
simple, without any laws against alienation, is some- 
thing without parallel in human history. Six cities 

239 



Hearths and Homes 

have grown up (with a seventh about to assume the 
civic gown) without materially taking from our arable 
territory. No land titles in the world stand upon so 
just a base. We care nothing for the original grant 
from the King of England. The settlement was 
made at just that period, when under the plan of 
the Creator, this portion of the earth was appointed 
for the occupation of a new race. Pestilence and 
war had swept away the once numerous tribes of 
red men, so that only a scattered remnant remained. 
Whatever rights they had in the earth, sky and 
water, in the prolix phraseology of the period, they 
willingly conveyed to our shrewd ancestors. Thus 
all the lands are held by a triple title — first, the 
royal grant, second, the town grant, and third, the 
Indian release. 

Since that time neither pestilence, earthquake, 
cyclone, famine, nor war, has devastated our domain. 
To-day the only danger that threatens the stone- 
fenced ancient farms is found in the incursion of 
cultured, but jaded city men, who have discovered 
the charms of rural life and seek to dispossess after 
the manner of Alexander of Maceclon, who said, " I 
despair of taking no city into which I can introduce 
a mule laden with gold." Such taking may not be 
unwelcome to some, but it will be in the far future 
when the Yankee farmer yields up his supremacy 
amidst the hills, dales and intervales >f old Essex. 

Washington Irving has painted with loving minute- 
ness the master of Bracebridge Hall : — 



240 



of Old Lynn 



His certain life, that never can deceive him. 
Is full of thousand sweets, and rich content ; 

The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him 
With coolest shade, till noontide's heat be spent. 

His life is neither tost in boisterous seas 

Or the vexatious world ; or lost in slothful ease. 

Pleased and full blessed he lives, when he his God can please. 



The genial squire lives in real life in every hamlet 
in this picturesque region of ours, from the serpen- 
tine Saugus to the majestic Merrimac. 

The farmers of Essex are not forced to lead isolated 
lives, as is the case in most rural districts. The 
steam railroad penetrates every town in the County, 
save Nahant, and the people there much prefer to 
be without the luxury. 

In the near future the electric car, both for freight 
and passengers, will stop at every farm-house. This 
is not a Utopian dream, but a practical scheme, 
which the "Engineering Magazine" is strongly urg- 
ing and which is already, so far as passengers are 
concerned, in actual operation in many towns ; and 
on one line, at least, freight cars run. 

The constant passing of cars over city pavements 
between brick walls is not an unmixed blessing, but 
stated trips of such cars will be a great benefit to 
the farmer and his family, especially in those seasons 
of the year when country roads — even the best — 
are liable _o be muddy and not comfortable for 
ordinary locomotion. 

Besides the economical uses of these cars, they 
will facilitate the enjoyment of another institution 

241 



Hearths and Homes 

in which Massachusetts stands in the van — the 
public library system. 

"Of making many books there is no end," but the 
public library is one of the marvels of the nineteenth 
century. Public schools and newspapers have made 
readers of all, but no individual can expect to own, 
or if he did own, could furnish shelf-room for all the 
books he may desire to read. The public library 
selects, houses, cares for and distributes the printed 
treasures of the thought of the world in every town 
to every family. 

As many books are accessible to the village maiden 
to-day as the scholars of the universities had at their 
command a few years ago. 

Yes ! Thoreau was right. It was fortunate for 
us that our fathers made their landfall upon this 
coast of sandbars and rocky headlands — upon this 
land of marsh and wooded hillside — this region with 
frost enough in the atmosphere to make man work 
for his bread with muscle and brain — this land now 
teeming with folk-lore of a plain, God-fearing yeo- 
manry — this favored home of the free common 
school and the free public library. 

They found here a soil that with industry would 
reward labor — they found a land full of noble 
trees and charming wild flowers — they built homely 
houses, which they have bequeathed to us with their 
records of well-spent and often heroic lives. 

While there is a pride that dwells too much upon 
the past, yet there is much that has come down with 
the heirlooms that is worthy of our emulation. While 



of Old Lynn 

we employ all new inventions that lessen labor in our 
chosen callings, we may ponder with profit upon the 
lives of our ancestors, who, with lesser means and 
with ruder implements made their lives successful 
and their influence salutary upon those who followed 
them. 

These thoughts are trite, but when we observe the 
mad rush of life in cities, hearts broken and lives 
wrecked in the constant reverses of business, it is 
meet for the farmer to reflect upon his life so near 
to nature, so near to the things which were dear to 
his kin, so free from the corrosion of all other pur- 
suits. 



i43 



LYNNFIELD IN THE REVOLUTION. 1 




jESPITE of the libraries of argument and un- 
ceasing* floods of rhetoric which the events 
of April 19, 1775, have produced or perhaps 
rather by virtue of the same, the immediate wrongs 
of which our fathers complained were not in them- 
selves adequate to explain the great uprising which 
was coolly planned and to which the match was 
applied by the march of the British regulars to Con- 
cord. The initial grievance was far back of the 
vexatious taxing of the Colonists by the English 
Ministry and Parliament, The roots of the tree of 
freedom were planted in New England when Win- 
throp brought the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay 
Colony to the new world. The tree was tended and 
nourished in hardship and blood. 

Judge Mellen Chamberlain once told of an inter- 
view with a veteran of the Lexington fight, which 
I have long thought a significant utterance of a plain 
man of the people, Capt. Levi Preston, of Danvers. 
Judge Chamberlain said : — 

" When I was about twenty-one, and Captain Pres- 
ton about ninety-one, I interviewed him in his own 
home as to what he did and thought sixty-seven 
years before, on the 19th of April, 1775, and now 

1 An address delivered in Lynnfield Town Hall, June 17, 1905. 

245 



Hearths and Homes 

fifty-two years later, I make my report, a little 
belated, perhaps, but I trust not too late for the 
morning papers. With an assurance passing even 
that of the modern interviewer, I began : — 

" ' Captain Preston, what made you go to the Con- 
cord fight ? ' 

" The old man, bowed with the weight of fourscore 
years and ten, raised himself upright, and turning to 
me said : — ' What did I go for ? ' 

" ' Yes,' I replied. ' My histories all tell me you 
men of the Revolution took up arms against intol- 
erable oppression. What was it ? ' 

" ' Oppression ? I did n't feel any that I know of.' 

" ' Were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act ? ' 

" ' I never saw any stamps, and I always understood 
that none were ever sold.' 

" ' Well, what about the tea tax ? ' 

"'Tea tax? I never drank a drop of the stuff; 
the boys threw it all overboard.' 

" ' But I suppose you had been reading Harrington, 
Sidney and Locke about the eternal principles of 
liberty? ' 

" ' I never heard of those men. The only books we 
had were the Bible, the catechism, Watts' psalms and 
hymns, and the almanac' 

" ' Well, then, what was the matter? ' 

" ' Young man, what we meant in fighting the British 
was this : We always had been free and we meant 
to be free always.' " 

It is safe to say that when the storm of the Revo- 
lution burst upon this rural hamlet, every roof -tree 

24<i 



of Old Lynn 

that sheltered the fathers and sons was their own, 
earned by brawn and brain. Perhaps they could 
not scan and measure the full scope of their deeds, 
nor the wonderful results that were to come from 
their actions, but like Levi Preston, they always had 
been free and they dared all to maintain that free- 
dom. Prior to armed resistance to the day when 
Major John Buttrick " fired the shot heard around 
the world," the Provincial Congress had been making- 
ready for the impending conflict. 

Among other duties it had seen to it that Tories 
were weeded out of the militia. After the purging 
process you may find upon your records this signifi- 
cant entry : — 

"Agreeably to the advice of the respectable Pro- 
vincial Congress, the training band company of Lynn, 
North Parish, being a part of the first regiment in 
the County of Essex, formerly commanded by Wil- 
liam Brown, politically deceased by a pestilential and 
mortal disorder, and now buried in the ignominious 
ruins at Boston, met on Monday, November 15, and 
after choosing Deacon Nathaniel Bancroft as their 
Chairman, elected Joseph Gowing, Captain ; Nathaniel 
Sherman, First Lieutenant, and John Perkins, Ensign." 

When the War of the Revolution came — the war 
for the independence of America from Kingcraft 
as well as priestcraft — for which the fathers had 
looked, worked and prayed — Lynnfield had long been 
for all practical purposes a separate town. 

When the 19th of April, 1775, dawned, it was 
known in the old North Parish, in the district 

247 



Hearths and Homes 

of Lynnfield, as well as elsewhere in Essex and 
Middlesex. 

The mortal remains of a night rider, who aided 
Paul Revere in spreading the alarm that Lord Percy 
was to march, rest in your God's acre. 

Dr. Martin Herrick, though he lived in the little 
villages of Reading and Lynnfield, was a noted man, 
and a participant in stirring times. 

Captain Bancroft's Company was ready to march 
when Herrick's panting steed clattered up to Gow- 
ing's Tavern. Later, the doctor became a surgeon in 
the Continental service. 

In the momentous happenings of one of the myste- 
rious cycle days of New England, the sons of Lynnfield 
took sturdy and gallant part, and the blood of its 
slain sons reddening the sod of Menotomy made the 
Concord and Lexington country classic and hallowed 
ground for patriotic Americans forever. 

Right here it may be said that Daniel Townsend 
was the only one of the sons of ancient Lynn slain 
on that day, who found a burial place among his kin. 
The others who fell were placed in the burial ground 
at Menotomy as unknown dead. 

Among those humble martyrs were William Flint 
and Thomas Hadley. These two men lived in the 
southern part of Lynnfield, and were enrolled and 
served with Captain David Parker's Saugus company 
upon the great clay in which they laid down their 
lives. 

The discovery of the grave of a Revolutionary 
soldier gave to Howard K. Sanderson a pleasure that 

248 



of Old Lynn 

rivaled the intense satisfaction which rewarded the 
great botanist when his quest chanced upon a new 
orchid. The many hours and days that he toiled in 
the moss-grown burial grounds of Lynnfield, Saugus 
and Lynn, and in the old homes of the people are 
unknown to but few. 

That he is not here to-day with his rich stories of 
Revolutionary history is your misfortune and mine - 
that the inspiring eloquence of that enthusiastic stu- 
dent of the history-making epoch is lacking on this 
occasion is one of the inscrutable ways of an over- 
ruling Providence. 

There is an old English word that applies to the 
labor of Howard K. Sanderson in the search for 
materials bearing upon our Revolutionary life. It 
is "prodigious." 

So far as Lynnfield is concerned, all that is known 
of individuals is typewritten and ready for the 
printer. I have only presumed to use one sketch, 
and that because he had such a loving tenderness 
for the memory of the man whose name at his 
suggestion was given to our junior chapter of the 
Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution : - 

Daniel Townsend, Private, son of Deacon Daniel and 
Mary (Hutchinson) Townsend, was born on the so-called 
"Needham Place" in Lynnfield Centre, October 16, 
1738. In many respects his name is probably the 
best known of any connected with Lynn during 
the Revolutionary War. His biography is one of 
the very few published ; his services have been the 
subject of many patriotic allusions, and his grave 

249 



Hearths and Homes 

has been pointed out for one hundred and thirty 
years as that of a martyr in the cause of liberty. 

He was one of a large family of children, among 
whom was his brother Thomas, with whom he was 
closely associated. He was married in Reading, 
January 24, 1764, to Zerviah Upton, of Reading, 
born 1744, daughter of John Upton. They began 
life in the house which stood at the junction of the 
roads below Pilling's Pond, about one mile south of 
Lynnfield Centre. It was owned at the time by 
Samuel One, and was struck by lightning and 
burned in 1899. June 30, 1771, he and his wife, 
Zerviah, owned the covenant and joined the Second 
Parish Church. July 7, his children, John and Daniel, 
were baptized ; August 4, Jacob ; August 29, 1773, 
Zerviah, and January 15, 1775, Lydia. Mr. Townsend 
took but little part in town affairs, serving only as 
Warden in 1771 and Assessor in 1775. He early 
joined the Minute Men of the Parish, and with his 
brother Thomas, who was a Lieutenant, marched to 
Menotomy, where they met the British on the retreat 
to Boston, April 19, 1775. The story of his tragic 
death on that day is as follows : At five o'clock in 
the afternoon he found himself between the flank 
guard and main line of the British army, at the 
house of Jason Russell, at Menotomy. He made a 
brave effort to escape, but fell riddled with bullets. 
From the best information obtainable, it appears that 
his neighbors carried his body home that night, arriv- 
ing during the small hours of the morning. The 
unusual commotion in the road, the confused voices 

250 



of Old Lynn 

of men, and the moving about of lanterns in the 
yard, betokened to Mrs. Townsend that something 
unusual had taken place. When the news was broken 
to her, she was overwhelmed and never recovered, 
she being left helpless with five small children, the 
youngest but six months old. Mr. Townsend's 
remains were tenderly laid in the best room of the 
old house and a portion of his neighbors remained as 
a sort of yeoman guard of honor. It is supposed 
that the funeral was held in the Second Parish 
Church, and that Rev. Benjamin Adams preached 
the funeral sermon. His remains were borne just 
across the way where they were interred in the 
village cemetery, the entire town attending the 
funeral. The church records bear this simple and 
quaint entry: " Ap. 19, 1775, died Dan'l Townsend 
in a battle with the Regulars : He was shot down 
dead in a moment, in ye 36th year of his age." 
The Essex Gazette of May 2, 1775, says : " He was 
a constant and ready friend to the poor and afflicted ; 
a good adviser in cases of difficulty ; a mild and sin- 
cere reprover. In short, he was a friend to his 
country, a blessing to society and an ornament to 
the church of which he was a member." 

Mrs. Townsend soon followed him to the grave, 
dying October 19, aged thirty-one. The only allusion 
to him in the precinct records is on November 22, 
when William Richardson was chosen Assessor in 
his stead. The grave of Mr. Townsend is appro- 
priately marked by a black slate stone, which faces 
the highway and the old church on the green. The 

251 



Hearths and Homes 

inscription is : " Sacred to the memory of Mr. Daniel 
Townsend, who was slain at the Battle of Lexington, 
April 19, 1775, aged 36. 

" Lie, valient Townsend, in the peaceful shades; we trust. 
Immortal honors mingle with thy dust. 
What though thy body struggled in thy gore ? 
So did thy Saviour's body, long before; 
And as He raised His own, by power divine, 
So the same power shall also quicken thine, 
And in eternal glory mayst thou shine." 

Mrs. Townsend's gravestone bears this inscription : 
" Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Zerviah Townsend, 
relict of Mr. Daniel Townsend, who died Oct. 19, 
1775, aged 31. 

" Death has my life swept away, 
To follow my companion dear; 
But Christ can bear my soul away, 
And land it on the heavenly shore." 

Mr. Townsend died intestate, his brother Thomas 
being appointed administrator, while Capt. Nathaniel 
Bancroft was one of the appraisers. John Berry and 
Jesse Wellman were probably in his employ at the 
time of his death. Tradition has always connected 
the name of the former with the bringing home of 
Mr. Townsend's body. 

The Legislature later granted to his heirs the sum 
£2 14s. for losses sustained by him in the battle. 
Before the war, Mr. Townsend had loaned the town 
money, but his heirs received pay only in depreciated 
Continental currency. There are many of his descend- 
ants still living in Lynn, among them being three 



of Old Lynn 

grandchildren, Mrs. Henry H. Breed, Mrs. William P. 
Conway and Mrs. Eliza M. Atkinson. The musket 
which he carried on the 19th of April, is still in the 
possession of William H. Townsend, of this city. 

A bronze marker of the Sons of the American 
Revolution has been placed at Daniel Townsend's 
grave, and the American flag, fashioned and woven 
since his death, now floats over the hero's grave, in 
the quiet little town in which he was born and where 
his life was spent. 

Another individual sketch will be given, since the 
person was responsible as my great-grandfather for 
my privilege to appear here as a native of this town. 
Another great-grandfather of mine, Nathan Hawkes, 
who was in the Lexington fight, as Ensign of Capt. 
David Parker's Saugus company, had a son born in 
the great year, (1775) who, when he came to man's 
estate, found out that across the woods by the way 
of Indian Rock was a daughter of the house of Tar- 
bell. He married her. In the course of time, the race 
of Tarbell being childless in the male line, their son, 
Nathan D. Hawkes, took to himself a wife and went to 
live in the old Tarbell house. And there I was born. 

Jonathan Tarbell, Jr., should have a place in Lynn- 
field's roll of honor. Although Sergt, Jonathan Tar- 
bell, Jr., appears upon the Lexington alarm roll 
of Capt. Samuel Epes' company, Colonel Pickering's 
regiment, Danvers, he and his family were closely 
connected with Lynnfield. He was the son of Jona- 
than and Mary (Felton) Tarbell. 

The senior Jonathan purchased the secluded vale 

253 



Hearths and Homes 

which for a century and a quarter has been known 
as the Tarbell place, in Lynnfield, April 12, 1775, 
a few days before Lexington, and the deed was 
recorded April 21, 1775, two days after the battle. 
Previous to this time it had been in the possession 
of Joseph Jeffrey and from the place on the fateful 
day, marched Joseph Jeffrey, Jr., with Capt. Nathaniel 
Bancroft's company. 

Jonathan Tarbell, Sr., the father of Sergt. Jonathan 
Tarbell, was the son of Deacon Cornelius Tarbell and 
Mary (Sharp) Tarbell, of Danvers. 

Cornelius was the son of John Tarbell of Salem 
Village, whose name will ever be noted as the master 
spirit in the ecclesiastical contest with that arch- 
conspirator of the witchcraft delusion, Rev. Samuel 
Parris, which finally ejected Mr. Parris in disgrace 
from the country and vindicated the Christian name 
of Mr. Tarbell's wife's mother, Rebecca Nourse, a 
victim of the madness of 1692. 

Upon the Lexington monument in Peabody, the 
first name on the list of dead heroes is " Samuel 
Cook, set. 33." By his side, when the British bullet 
struck his heart, stood his brother-in-law, Sergt. Jona- 
than Tarbell, whose wife was Elizabeth Cook. 

His home was near those of Timothy Munroe, John 
Hawkes and Andrew Mansfield, and a portion of the 
large farm which he and his family occupied is now 
on the extreme eastern verge, covered by the waters 
of Hawkes' Pond. Thence it extended over the hill 
westerly into the valley to Saugus River, and the line 
of Wakefield. 

254 



of Old Lynn 

His sister, Sarah, married Asa Newhall, also a 
soldier of the Revolution. 

His children were Mary, who married Samuel Put- 
nam ; Jonathan, who died without issue ; Nathaniel, 
baptized October 2, 1781 ; Elizabeth, baptized June 8, 
1783, who married Nathan Hawkes, Jr., January 22, 
1805, and Sarah, baptized May 14, 1786, who died 
without issue. 

He died November 3, 1795, aged fifty-three years, 
and his mortal remains are in the family tomb upon 
the estate in Lynnfield, as are also the remains of 
his parents, who each lived to the age of ninety- 
seven years and died in 1816 and 1817 respectively. 



Lynn Muster roll of Capt. Nathl. Bancroft's compy, in 
defence of this colony, upon april 19th, 1775. 









4 1(1. J>e 


r 


1 


»av for 




sum 


Rank. 


Men's Nanus. 


Miles 


Mile. 


days 


y 


= days. 




total. 


Capt. 


Nathl. Bancroft 


. 30 


S. (1. 

2 6 


2 


s. it. 

8 6 





S. (1. 

11 


Lt. 


Jos. Gowing . . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





5 8 





8 2 


Lt. 


Nathl. Sherman 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





5 





7 6 


Sergt. 


Thos. Townsend 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





3 5 





5 11 


Sergt. 


= Timo. Munroe . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





3 5 





5 11 


Drummer 


Benj. Adams . . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





2 10 


Private 


James Bancroft 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





2 10 




Timo. Wolton . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




* Jas. Gowing . . 


. 67 


5 7 


3 





4 3 





9 10 




John Berry . . . 


30 


2 6 


2 


o 


2 10 


o 


5 4 

5 4 




Jesse Wellman . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 







Ezekiel Newhall 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Jona. Wellman . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 


2 10 





5 4 




Brown, Josua . 


• 30 


2 6 


2 


2 10 





5 4 



= Wounded at .Jason Russell's house at Menoromy. 

*By order went to Ipswich gaol with a number of prisoners. 



Hearths and Homes 









« Id. ])c 


• 




•ay for 




sum 


Rank. 


Mrn's Names. 


Miles 


Mile. 


day 




ye days 




total. 


Private 


Wm. Mansfield . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





s. (1. 
2 10 





S. (1. 

5 4 




Andrew Mansfield 


. 30 


2 6 


2 


2 10 





5 4 




f * John Swone . . 


. . 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Jos. Jeffrey, Jr. 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Nathan Wolton 


. — 




2 


2 10 





2 10 




Onesimus Newhal 







2 





2 10 





2 10 




David Norwood . 


. — 




2 





2 10 





2 10 




Wm. Norwood . 


. — 


— 


2 





2 10 





2 10 




Saml. Mansfield 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




** Danl. Townsend 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 






. . 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 






30 


2 6 


2 


o 


2 10 


o 


5 4 




t f Drubbabel Hart 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Thaddeus Perry 


30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Ephraim Sheldon, 


Jr. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




°Josiah Brage . . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 






. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Jas. Brown . . . 


24 


■) 


1 





1 5 





3 5 






. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Aaron Aborn • . 


. 24 


2 


1 





1 5 





3 5 




Thos. Wellman . 


• 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Andrew Foster . 


. 30 


2 6 


2 





2 10 





5 4 




Francis Sheldon 


. — 





2 





2 10 





2 10 




Amos Smith . . 


• — 





2 





2 10 





2 10 



+ *.Tohn Swain. 

** Killed at Jason Russell's house at Menotomy, at 5.3<> P.M. 
t tZerubbabel. 
Josiah Bragg. 

Essex ss. Jany 5, 1778. Then the above named Nathl. Bancroft was sworn 
to ye truth of ye above roll or list. 

Before me, ABXER CHEEVER, Justice Peace. 

The Lexington alarm was responded to by almost 
every male inhabitant of Lynnfield capable of bearing 
arms. Here were no peace men, no Quakers, no royal 
sympathizers, but the community was a unit in the 

256 



of Old Lynn 

patriotic cause. Thirty-eight men marched with 
Captain Bancroft. Eighty-four men served to the 
credit of Lynn field during the war. The whole pop- 
ulation at that period could not have exceeded four 
hundred souls. Every home must have sent one 
inmate at least, and many, more than one. The list 
of soldiers shows this. Thus there were four Aborns, 
six Bancrofts, four Browns, four Gowings, four Harts, 
six Mansfields, twelve Newhalls, three Uptons, three 
Waltons and three Wellmans. Six other families, 
Burnham, Mead, Norwood, Nourse, Sheldon and 
Townsend, each sent two of the name. Brothers 
and fathers and sons vied with each other in the 
holy crusade. 

To-day, in this wonderfully homogeneous vale of 
plenty and beauty, which we call Lynnfield, tilling 
the ancestral acres are to be found bearers of the 
surnames and Christian names of the builders of 
the nation — for such were the men and boys who 
bore the musket at Lexington, at Saratoga, at the 
crossing of the Delaware, at the storming of Stony 
Point, on the bleak plain of Valley Forge, and at the 
capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 

On the 23d of April, 1775, Lynn appointed a Com- 
mittee of Safety, consisting of Rev. John Treadwell, 
of the First Parish, Deacon Daniel Mansfield, of the 
North, or Lynnfield, Parish, and Rev. Joseph Roby, 
of the Third, or Saugus, Parish. On the succeeding 
Sabbath, Mr. Treadwell went into his pulpit with 
his musket in one hand and Bible in the other. No 
doubt Deacon Mansfield and Rev. Mr. Roby were 



Hearths and Homes 

equally vigilant. The church of our fathers of the 
Puritan stock, like that of the chosen people of God 
- the children of Israel — upon whose precepts and 
from whose teachings as revealed in the Bible they 
formulated their laws, was a church militant. 

Lynnfield affords a striking example of the enduring- 
vitality of the Mosaic dispensation in the great crisis. 
Deacon Daniel Mansfield, whose house still stands in 
South Lynnfield, facing south over the fertile fields, 
was the member of the Committee of Safety. Deacon 
Nathaniel Bancroft, of Lynnfield Centre — fifty years 
old — was the captain of the devoted band which 
aided to rout the veteran troops of King George 
upon that bright April morning so many years ago. 
Special stress is laid upon the doings of Captain 
Bancroft and his company, because his company was 
organized and acted its chivalric part in the first 
clash of arms as a solid parish unit, 

After the 19th of April and the appointment of 
the Committee of Safety, the Provincial Congress 
and the Continental Congress and the selection of 
General Washington to the command of the rebel 
forces investing Boston, individuals were fused into 
regiments of the Continental Army. 

The muster roll of the company shows a change 
in the officers later than the list appointed at a 
meeting at which Deacon Bancroft presided, when 
Joseph Gowing was elected Captain. I have found 
no record of the change whereby Bancroft became 
Captain and Gowing First Lieutenant. It is not 
difficult to read between the lines. Although 

258 



of Old Lynn 

Captain Bancroft was not a young man, he drew to 
the patriots' side the potential agency of the church. 
Mr. Gowing also had reached the exempt age for 
active service, but he, too, represented a powerful 
factor in the Puritan polity. He kept the tavern hard 
by the meeting-house, on the green. His house was 
the rallying place of the gathering before the formal 
start from the village green by the Parish Meeting- 
house. The organization is a fair showing of the 
Yankee shrewdness. The deacon became Captain and 
the inn-keeper became his right-hand man, and the 
controlling forces of the community were combined. 

The march was west from the green until upon 
the shore of Lake Quannapowit, the old Charlestown 
Road was taken through the present towns of Wake- 
field, Melrose and Maiden, south, till it intersected 
the old Salem Road. Over this last-named road the 
other companies had marched from Lynn, and some- 
where at about Medford Square west the whole 
contingent came together and marched over to Jason 
Russell's in Menotomy, now Arlington. Here they 
met Percy's flying red coats, and here Townsend, 
Flint, Hadley and Ramsdell were killed, and Sergt. 
Timothy Munroe was wounded and had his clothes 
riddled with bullets, and all because our men were 
so largely used to individual gunning that they 
forgot that the regulars always threw out flanking 
parties, which could turn even stone-wall defences. 

On a similar occasion to this, a year ago, Henry 
Cabot Lodge, President of the Old Essex Chapter 
of the Sons of the American Revolution, said : - 

259 



Hearths and Homes 

"There is no more patriotic duty than to keep 
fresh in remembrance the deeds of the men who 
defended the country which we call ours to-day. 
None of these deeds or performances should go 
uncommemorated. There is no grave of a man 
who served his country in those early days of stress, 
whether he was an obscure private in the ranks or 
a leader in the government of the nation, that should 
remain unmarked or unrecognized by those bronze 
markers, for all their lives teach the same great 
lesson. It is not merely that we should show in 
this way our gratitude for what those men did for 
us, but we should endeavor to learn what those men 
were and what they did for us." 

We are not assembled here on this fair June day 
for an outing, for a gala day, but mainly to illustrate 
a cardinal virtue of the Sons of the American Revo- 
lution ; that of reverence for the hallowed memories 
of the fathers. 

The sons and daughters are joined in this solemn 
duty by the members of the junior order, whose 
chapter bears the honored name of Daniel Town- 
send. As the years roll by, this junior order will 
take the place of their elders as historians and 
care-takers at the shrines of these devoted men, 
whom we to-day, with uncovered heads and heart- 
felt thoughts, recall. 

It matters not that the story I have so falteringly 
and imperfectly related is a twice-told tale. The 
spirit of the old man and the boy in the famous 
patriotic painting, "The Spirit of 76," "Yankee 
Doodle," which hangs in Abbott Hall, Marblehead, 

260 



of Old Lynn 

typifies the stamina of the men of the times, whose 
magnetic power has drawn to us the best elements 
of the old world. 

The last annual parade of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, while it revealed depletion of membership 
and halting steps of the survivors, while it showed 
the devotion of the members, and of the sons, should 
also be a reminder that the Sons of the American 
Revolution will never allow the memory of the heroic 
sires who made the nation, to fade from the faithful 
hearts of the sons to whom they gave our glorious 
heritage. 

America, Massachusetts and Lynnfield will bind 
the laurel around the brows of the patriots in what- 
ever war or cause they strove for the common weal. 

And each oncoming generation will reverently care 
for the graves and the memories of those who rose 
from self to noble daring. 

Revolutionary Soldiers Buried in the Old Ground, 
Lynnfield Centre. 

Date of Style of 

Death. , Age. Stone. 

Aborn, Ebenezer March 8, 1792 68 Gov't 

Adams, Benjamin Jan. 16, 1811 52 Grave 

Bancroft, James, Lieut Aug. 22, 1814 82 Grave 

Bancroft, Nathaniel, Capt. . . . June 26, 1810 84 Grave 

Berry, John Gov't 

Brown, James Jan. 5, 1815 72 Grave 

Danforth, John Aug. 16, 1796 40 Grave 

Gowing, Daniel Oct. 17, 1782 Gov't 

Gowing, Joseph, Lieut Oct. 30, 1811 81 Gov't 

Hart, John April 11, 1811 78 Gov't 

Hart, Zerubbabel Feb. 14, 1797 59 Gov't 

261 



Hearths and Homes 



Date of 

Death. Age. 

Hawkes, John May 3, 1811 57 

Herrick, Martin July 10, 1820 74 

Mead, John May 2, 1817 73 

Nourse, Aaron July 18, 1818 65 

Perkins, John Sept. 4, 1823 83 

Perry, Thaddeus Feb. 5, 1806 76 

Sherman, Nathaniel Sept. 27, 1809 79 

Townsend, Daniel April 19, 1775 36 

Upton, John April 30, 1838 92 

Wellman, Jesse April 18, 1830 87 

Wellman, Jonathan Feb. 6, 1822 79 

Wellman, Thomas Dec. 25, 1818 76 

New Ground, Lynnfield Centre. 

Hart, Ebenezer March 26, 1840 77 

Needham, Daniel Feb. 16, 1844 83 

Parsons, Ebenezer April 17, 1843 83 

Old Ground, South Lynnfield. 

Mansfield, Andrew May 19, 1831 

Mansfield, Andrew July 26, 1788 31 

Mansfield, Daniel April 2, 1797 80 

Mansfield, William Sept. 28, 1809 60 

Newhall, Asa May 1, 1814 81 

Newhall, Ezekiel Dec. 12, 1821 78 

Newhall, Jacob Nov. 7, 1825 67 

Newhall, William June 5, 1823 73 

Walton, Nathan July 23, 1818 65 



Style of 
Stone. 

Grave 
Gov't 
Gov't 
Gov't 
Grave 
Gov't 
Gov't 
Grave 
Grave 
Gov't 
Gov't 
Gov't 



Grave 
Grave 
Grave 



Grave 

Grave 

Grave 

Grave 

Monm't 

Grave 

Grave 

Grave 



262 



WHY THE OLD TOWN HOUSE WAS BUILT. 1 




IgjgjHE offering I bring you to-day is not history, 
but simply the miner's rude ore, in which, 
when your historian comes, he may find some 
facts which may be welded into the annals of a quiet 
town, whose sons are proud to trace their kinship to 
its Puritan founders. 

The planters of Massachusetts were the most 
earnest, devout and intelligent people of their age. 
While they were largely influenced by considera- 
tions of religious freedom, they were also profoundly 
impressed with the idea of founding an ideal com- 
monwealth, a greater England, freed from feudalism 
and fashioned on the Mosaic code. 

They had to create a church and a state. They 
made the town the unit of the civil power, and the 
parish the unit of ecclesiastical authority. In the 
growth of the Puritan theocracy, parish and town 
were practically one. The parish chose the repre- 
sentatives to the General Court, and the town chose 
the minister. All town affairs were determined in 
the parish meeting-house. 

' An address delivered at the dedication of the new Town Hall, 
Lynnfield, January 28, 1892. 

263 



Hearths and Homes 

When the people multiplied and it became expe- 
dient to form new parishes, it was accomplished in 
several ways and under several names, all subordi- 
nating other motives to that of the religious welfare 
of the inhabitants. Two examples of parishes and 
towns formed from the parent town and parish are 
at hand. Lynn was a town, self incorporated by 
a community sending its freemen to the general 
meeting place of the Colony and then sending dep- 
uties to the first General Court. 

It is to be borne in mind that the great Puritan 
exodus from England, the organized transplanting 
of a whole people, was almost wholly between 1630 
and 1640. At the latter date, the prospects of 
religious liberty at home had so brightened with 
the successes of Parliament, that emigration stopped 
and some of the more enthusiastic spirits, like Hugh 
Peters of Salem and Thomas Marshall of Lynn, 
returned to serve under the banners of Fairfax and 
Cromwell, as chaplain and captain. 

The frequent arrival of planters during those years 
created pressing demands for more lands. The fer- 
tile uplands in the interior invited the agricultural 
settlers with their flocks and herds away from the 
sea coast. The normal line of expansion from Lynn 
was up the valley of " the great river at Saugus " to 
its source in " the great pond," which is now known 
as Lake Quannapowitt in the present town of Wake- 
field. Hence, on the ninth of September, 1639, the 
General Court granted more territory to Lynn in 
the following language : — 

264 



of Old Lynn 

" The petition of the Inhabitants of Lynn, for a 
place for an inland plantation at the head of their 
bounds is granted them 4 miles square, as the place 
will afford : upon condition that the petitioner shall, 
within two years, make some good proceeding in 
planting, so as it may be a village, fit to contain a 
convenient number of inhabitants, which may in dew 
time have a church there ; and so as such as shall 
remove to inhabit there, shall not with all keepe their 
accommodations in Linn above 2 years after their 
removal to the said village, upon pain to forfeit their 
interest in one of them at their election : except this 
court shall see fit cause to dispence further with 
them." 

This " inland plantation " had its extreme northern 
line upon the Ipswich River, and included the mod- 
ern towns of Reading and Wakefield. The language 
of the act shows the constant, careful provision made 
for the religious welfare of the people. It was made 
incumbent upon the grantees to send into the new 
territory enough settlers to form a church. They 
were not to straggle up into the wilderness, but 
were to go in sufficient numbers to warrant the 
settlement and maintenance of a pastor. Another 
point aimed to prevent one who had already received 
a grant in Lynn from absorbing another in Lynn 
Village. If he took a new grant and residence in 
the village, he abandoned his " accommodations " in 
the town. 

The purpose of the settlers and of the General 
Court was, not to make unwieldy towns where attend- 
ance at worship would be inconvenient, but, as in 

265 



Hearths and Homes 

this case, to put the settlers of the new territory 
under the care of Lynn till such time as they were 
strong enough to support a church of their own. 
Church and town were so nearly identical that when 
its church had been gathered, the General Court, 
May 29, 1644, incorporated Lynn Village as the 
Town of Reading. 

Thus early the added portion of Lynn secured an 
independent church and township. Lynn End, or 
Lynnfield, even earlier than Lynn Village or Reading, 
became a part of Lynn. On the 13th of March, 
1638-39, the General Court records relate that " Linn 
was granted 6 miles into the countrey, & Mr. Haw- 
thorne & Leif F. Davenport to view & inform how 
the land beyond lyeth — whether it may bee fit for 
another plantation or no." 

This was a mere territorial extension of Lynn 
bounds for the convenience of the settlers of the 
then existing parish. It was not granted with the 
intention of establishing a separate parish and town. 
The settlers upon the fair, upland plains of Lynnfield 
remained attached to the first parish for many a 
long year, and were bound to travel nine good miles 
to worship in the meeting-house by the sea. Our 
fathers desired exceedingly the consolations of reli- 
gious ministrations, but the long, rough roads through 
the sombre Lynn Woods were stumbling blocks in 
their way. 

At the time Lynn was about to build a new 
meeting-house (1682) much discussion was had in 
regard to choosing a site near the geographical 

2(36 



of Old Lynn 

centre of the town. A now-wooded hill at the west 
of Birch Pond, within the limits of the present Town 
of Saugus, was favored by the inhabitants of the 
west and north parts of the town. The dwellers 
of the eastern end by the sea objected to going to 
the breezy uplands. The project failed. The " Old 
Tunnel " Meeting-house was built on Lynn Common. 
Out of the failure to agree upon the western location 
grew, not in contention, but in Christian spirit, the 
Second, or North Parish, and the Third, or West 
Parish. These by natural laws of evolution became 
later on the Towns of Lynnfield and Saugus. Mean- 
time the little band kept the faith ; some went to 
the Lynn church, others became connected with the 
Reading church, so much more convenient, but all 
were required to contribute to the support of the 
ministry of the First Parish. Then, still recognizing 
the paramount duty of maintenance of the ministry 
and of convenience of attending service, the Town 
of Lynn, November 17, 1712, voted : - 

" In answer to that petition of our neighbors, the 
farmers, so called, dated Feb. 13, 1711, desiring to 
be a precinct, that all the part of the town that lies 
on the northerly side of that highway that leads 
from Salem to Reading, be set off for a precinct, 
and when they shall have a meeting-house and a 
minister, qualified according to law, settled to preach 
the Word of God amongst them, then they shall be 
wholly freed from paying to the ministry of the 
town and not before. And if afterwards they shall 
cease to maintain a minister amongst them then to 
pay to the minister of the town as heretofore." 

267 



Hearths and Homes 

As early as 1678, as appeared by a petition to the 
General Court in that year, the ''Adjacent Farmers" 
of Lynnfield and Stoneham were crowding the Read- 
ing church so that it was necessary to enlarge the 
building, not for their own accommodation, but for 
that of those who worshiped there from this side of 
Saugus River and yet were obliged " to pay their hole 
rates to their own towns." 

In their perplexity they go to the General Court 
to see if there is any way out of the difficulty. 

" The humble petision of the towne of Redding 
Humbly Showeth — That whereas our case, being as 
your petissiners humbly conseive, soe sircumstanced 
as we Know not the like in all Respects — and not 
Knowing which waye to helpe ourselves. But By 
humbly acquainting yor honners with our state, 
your honners beeing the Fathers of the Common- 
wealth to which wee doe belonge ; and yor petis- 
siners humbly hoping that yor honners will helpe 
soe far as may bee to the Relieving of us in our 
case : It being soe with us that wee are butt a poore 
place, very few above sixty families Abell to pay 
the Ministry, and severall of them have more need 
to Receive than to paye. If wee were a place of 
ability as many others bee ; and to us there is Adjacent 
farmers, which bee constant hearers of the word, 
with us, which goes not at all to their owne towne, 
But Transiently as others doe ; Neither came they 
one the Sabbath days butt bee breakers of the Lawe 
of God and of this commonwealth as we conseive. 
And to many of them itt would be soe intolerable 
a burthen, then many of them must necessarily 
refraine from the public worship of god, established 
amongst us, for prevention of which they doe heare 



of Old Lynn 

with us, which seems to be very hard for us to 
maintayne Ministry and meeting-house conveniently 
for them, and others to force them to paye their 
hole Rates to their one townes, as others do ; or if 
some of them bee Betterminded, the bisenes lyeth 
so at the present, that wee have nothing from them 
all or next to nothing. 

" Another thing that your humble petisioners desire 
to declare to your honners is thatt wee have now not 
roume enough in our Meeting house for ourselves, 
but the Adjasent farmers being one third or very 
neare one third as much as wee, wee muste build 
anew before itt bee Louge for the house will be too 
littell for them and us, which wee hope your honners 
will consider how the case is like to bee with us, if 
nothing be considered. Butt as wee hope itt is the 
waye, that god would have us to take to leave the 
case to your honners, we desire humbly soe to doe, 
and quiettly to reste to this honoured Courte's good 
pleasure as to what hath been declared. 

" And shall ever pray — In the name & by the con- 
sent of the Reste of the inhabitants of the Town. 
Wm. Cowdrey, Robert Burnap, Jona. Poole, Thomas 
Parker, Jeremy Swaine." 



In 1688, Reading set about building a new meeting- 
house. Among the subscribing for liberal amounts 
were the men of Lynnfield, such as John Pearson, 
John Bancroft, Hananiah Hutchinson, Edward Hutch- 
inson, Isaac Hart, Capt. Thomas Bancroft, John Poole, 
Timothy Hartshorne and John Townsend. Most of 
them are the names of the planters of the sturdy stock 
whose good qualities are perpetuated by their descend- 
ants in the ancestral homesteads even to this day. 

269 



Hearths and Homes 

In Eaton's " History of Reading " is given " a cata- 
logue of the brethren and sisters in full communion 
in the first church in Reading, Jan. 3, 1720-1." 
Among them are twenty "members of this church 
belonging to Lynn End (Lynnfield) not yet dis- 
missed." 

Later in the same year (1720) the Reading church 
records show dismissals to join Lynn End church. 
From 1712 to 1720, the pious work of building a 
meeting-house and preparing to maintain a ministry 
went on. In the latter year the conditions of sep- 
aration from the First Parish were all fulfilled, and 
Lynnfield became a Precinct and Second Parish of 
Lynn. 

The division line of 1712 "all that part of the 
town that lies on the northerly side of that highway 
that leads from Salem to Reading " was an ecclesi- 
astical line. The houses of the settlers on that road 
were built upon the northern side facing due south. 
They looked out upon their broad acres on the other 
side of the road. When the formal sanction of the 
General Court was had to the recognition of the 
District of Lynnfield in 1782, a territorial line was 
run taking in the farm and timber lands as will be 
seen by the description. 

" Beginning at Saugus river, near a white oak tree 
in Jonathan Tarbell's lower field, near the cant of 
the river which is in the line between Jefferd's and 
Brinton's farms and running eastwardly to lands of 
Benjamin Riddon ; thence turning by John Pool's 
land, as the wall runs, to a great rock by the side 

•-'7" 



of Old Lynn 

of the hill ; thence southeasterly to Josiah Newhall's 
southwest corner bound, adjoining to the town wall, 
so-called ; thence running south-easterly to Andrew 
Mansfield's south-west corner bound, at the wall ; 
thence running as the wall runs, to the southeast 
corner of John Lindsey's orchard ; thence northerly 
as the wall runs to the road that leads from Reading 
to Salem ; thence easterly, as the road runs to 
Danvers line." 

This line included all the farms on the Reading 
Road, except those of Asa Newhall and John Lindsey, 
who cast their lots with the parent town. 

Under the precinct line of 1712, I could not have 
had the right to address you to-day as a native. By 
the district line of 1782, unchanged when the town 
was established, that privilege is mine. 

In provincial times the words " district," " precinct " 
and " peculiar " were practically synonymous. 

On the 9th of November, the General Court based, 
and on the 21st of November, 1702, the Royal Gov- 
ernor, Joseph Dudley, signed an act which defines 
the powers of Districts, and indicates their eccle- 
siastical origin. 

" That the inhabitants of each district or precinct, 
respectively, regularly set off from any town, shall 
be and are hereby empowered to name and appoint 
a clerk, as of right towns by law have ; as also 
assessors for the assessing and raising a mainte- 
nance and support for the minister of such district 
or precinct, and to make out a warrant, in form as 
by the law prescribed for town rates or assessments, 
directed to the constable of the town or district, for 

271 



Hearths and Homes 

the collecting and levying of the same, who is 
required to execute such warrant accordingly. And 
in case the assessors so appointed shall refuse or 
neglect that service, the selectmen of the town from 
whence such district or precinct was set off, shall 
and are hereby required to assess the inhabitants 
of the same the sum agreed upon or set for mainte- 
nance of the minister thereof." 



June 19, 1782, the town (Lynn) met agreeable to 
adjournment and the committee made the following 

report, viz. : — 



" We the committee of the town of Lynn and the 
committee of the North Parish in sd Town chosen 
by sd Town & Parish to agree on some terms to 
set off sd Parish from sd Town as a separate District, 
have met and do agree to set off sd Parish in the 
following manner, viz : they the sd Parish to pay 
all their proportion of the Town's debt due a this 
time & all town charges till they the sd Parish are 
set off by the General Court as a separate district 
from sd Town also that sd Parish pay their propor- 
tionate part to support the poor of sd Town till the 
close of the war & at the end of the war the poor 
shall be divided & sd North Parish shall take their 
proportionate part of sd Poor agreeable to their 
Taxes & that the sd Poor to be proportionable by 
a committee chosen by sd Town & Parish viz : sd 
Town to choose two men to be sd committee & sd 
Parish, one, & if they cannot agree on sd proportion 
to have power to submit it to disinterested men 
mutually chosen and that the poor be under the 
care of the above sd committee during the war and 



of Old Lynn 

if sd North Parish request it they to take their 
proportion of sd Poor and support them in sd parish. 

Lynn June 19, 1782. 

JOHN MANSFIELD, \ 

WILLIAM COLLINS, / 

JAMES NEWHALL, \ Town] Committee. 

SAMUEL SWEETSErA 

ABNER HOOD, / 

DANIEL MANSFIELD, \ 
JONATHAN TARBELL, I _, Parish ^ 

JOSEPH GOWING, \ Committee. 

On the 14th of June, 1813, the District of Lynnfield 
chose a committee consisting of Daniel Needham, 
Andrew Mansfield, and John Upton, Jr., to petition 
the General Courts to be admitted as a town. The 
petition was referred to the Committee on Towns, 
January 13, 1814. The reasons for this step were 
given as follows, viz. : — 

" That the distance from Lynnfield Meeting-house 
to the place where the election of Representatives 
is generally held is nine miles that even that distance 
it is conceived is not so great as an accurate average 
to the whole inhabitants would be. That the great 
distance renders it inconvenient for the inhabitants 
to attend the election. We would observe that the 
district of Lynnfield has no connection with the 
Town of Lynn, excepting in the choice of Repre- 
sentatives, all of which most respectfully submitted 
and as in duty bound shall ever pray." 

A remonstrance was presented February 1, 1814 r 
signed by twenty-three tax payers, beginning with 
Jacob Newhall and closing with Asa Tarbell Newhall, 

273 



Hearths and Homes 

representing that the ratable polls were not more 
than about one hundred and thirty — 

" . . . . with which numbers your honor will per- 
ceive we shall not have a constitutional right to be 
represented in the Honorable Legislature, that the 
inconvenience of a few miles' travel at the annual 
meetings in May would be inconsiderable ; that to 
deprive your petitioner of the privilege of repre- 
sentation in the Legislature of this Commonwealth 
would be an event much to be deplored, that many 
of the evils and inconveniences which would result 
to your petitioners from a deprivation of that right 
cannot be concealed from them. 

" Therefore pray not to be set off. Feb. 1st, 1814." 

Extracts from the warrant and records of Lynn 
show that the three parts of the town, even in the 
midst of the ill-starred last war with England, were 
more exercised over domestic than foreign affairs. 
Saugus is there styled the Second Parish, as Lynn- 
field Parish had long been treated as a practically 
independent place, entirely so as far as its parish 
was concerned. 

Saugus had to wait another year before its desire 
for local government was gratified. The age of 
parishes has been succeeded by the era of steam and 
electricity, and the Saugus people of to-day begin 
to realize that their boundary line with Lynn is a 
purely arbitrary one and perhaps it would be as well 
if it did not exist at all. 

"Warrant, Lynn Town Meeting, Jan. 22, 1814- 
Meet at Hall of Paul & Ellis Newhall. 1st, choose 



274 



of Old Lynn 

moderator. 2nd, To see if the town will express 
their assent to a certain petition of the inhabitants 
of the District of Lynnfield to our General Court to 
be incorporated into a town or otherwise to choose a 
committee to remonstrate in the General Court in 
behalf of the Town against the said petition of the 
inhabitants of the said district of Lynnfield, or other- 
wise to see what other order the town will take 
respecting said petition. 3rd, To see if the town 
will express their assent to a certain petition of 
Nathan Hawkes and others to our General Court to 
have the Second Parish in Lynn set off from the 
town of Lynn and established as a separate district, 
and if so to choose a committee in behalf of the town 
to make arrangements and settle all concerns with 
sd Second Parish. Otherwise to see if the town will 
choose a committee to remonstrate in our General 
Court in behalf of the Town against the sd petition 
of Nathan Hawkes and others or otherwise to see 
what other order the town will take respecting the 
petition. 

HENRY HALLOWELL, > 
NEHEMIAH SILSBEE, J selectmen. 

" Jan. 31, 1814. Oliver Fuller, Moderator. 

" Voted, to choose the Selectmen a committee in 
order to make as good a bargain as they can with 
the inhabitants of Lynnfield and if not to the com- 
mittee's satisfaction then to remonstrate against the 
District being set off as a town and report at the 
adjournment of this meeting." 

This committee made a report which shows that 
the parent town virtually left the matter in the 
hands of the people of the District, and it forcibly 

275 



Hearths and Homes 

points out the simplicity and public virtues of those 
days. The committee actually refused to put the 
town to the expense for a junket. 

" Report of Selectmen. — To the Inhabitants of the 
Town of Lynn in Town Meeting Assembled : —Your 
committee chosen by the town for the purpose of 
making as good a bargain with the inhabitants of 
the District of Lynnfield as they can, and if not to 
their satisfaction there to remonstrate against said 
District being set off as a town, thought expedient 
to request the Committee on Corporations to give 
your committee one week longer to settle with said 
District, which time your committee understood was 
granted and soon after have been informed that a 
remonstrance from the Inhabitants of said District 
has been handed into the Court against the District 
being set off as a Town. Under these considerations 
your committee thought best not to put the town to 
the expense of a journey to Lynnfield on said busi- 
ness, but to await some further direction. 

HENRY HALLOWELL." 

"Lynn, Feb. 7, 1814. 

" Voted, to accept the Selectmen's report respect- 
ing the business with Lynnfield, and dismiss them 
from that business. 

" Voted, that Henry Oliver, James Gardner, Micajah 
Newhall, John Pratt, Aaron Breed, Elija Downing, 
Richard Breed and John Alley, Jr., be directed to 
meet with the 2d Parish in order to form a bill for 
an incorporation, if the prayer of Nathan Hawkes 
and others be granted." 

The Lynnfield remonstrants had logic and facts on 
their sid e, for under the Constitution of the Common- 

276 



of Old Lynn 

wealth only "every corporate town containing one 
hundred and fifty ratable polls may elect one repre- 
sentative." Lynnfield district had only one hundred 
and thirty polls. As a part of Lynn its freeholders 
had the privilege of voting for representatives ; as 
a town they would be disfranchised. The petitioners 
prevailed, however, and Lynnfield became a town on 
the 28th of February, 1814. 

When at last Lynnfield became entitled to send 
a representative to the General Court, neither John 
Upton, Jr., who had favored the setting off the new 
town, nor Asa Tarbell Newhall, who had opposed, 
became the first representative, but the choice fell 
upon Gen. Josiah Newhall, who was elected for the 
political year beginning on the last Wednesday in 
May, 1826, and again in 1827. 

Asa T. Newhall succeeded General Newhall and 
he in turn was followed by John Upton, Jr. 

I am aware that these are dry, disjointed gleanings 
from a local history which is rich in interest to 
students of New England life. The dedication of 
your fair new town building marks an era in your 
existence. It is the final divorce of church and 
town. The holding of the town meetings in the 
house erected on the Green by the Old North Parish 
was a reminder of Puritan ways that at this day is 
almost unique. The old house was plain, but it was 
in keeping with the plain God-fearing yeomanry who 
there legislated and worshiped. 

There the precinct, district and town of Lynnfield 
were formed. After the massive oak timbers of that 



Hearths and Homes 

edifice were hewn from the primeval forest, two 
generations of men had wrought their appointed 
tasks ere the solemn rumble of creaking wagons 
passed on to the Col. Cox Tavern with precious 
freight of dead and wounded. That wondrous day, 
the 19th of April, 1775, had occurred, and hard by in 
yonder church-yard repose the mortal remains of 
Lynnfield's hero and martyr of that day. 

The manner of his death is related in the " History 
of Lynn" as told by Timothy Munroe, also of Lynn- 
field. 

" He (Munroe) was standing behind a house, with 
Daniel Townsend, firing at the British troops, as they 
were coming down the road, in their retreat towards 
Boston. Townsend had just fired, and exclaimed, 
' There is another redcoat down,' when Munroe, look- 
ing round, saw to his astonishment, that they were 
completely hemmed in by the flank guard of the 
British army, who were coming down through the 
fields behind them. They immediately ran into the 
house and sought for the cellar, but no cellar was 
there. They looked for a closet but there was none. 
All this time, which was indeed but a moment, the 
balls were pouring through the back windows, mak- 
ing havoc of the glass. Townsend leaped through 
the end window carrying the sash and all with him, 
and instantly fell dead. Munroe followed, and ran 
for his life. He passed for a long distance between 
both parties, many of whom discharged their guns 
at him. As he passed the last soldier, who stopped 
to fire, he heard the redcoat exclaim, 'Damn the 
yankee, he is bullet proof — let him go ! ' 

"Mr. Munroe had one ball through his leg, and 
thirty-two bullet holes through his clothes and hat. 

27S 



of Old Lynn 

Even the metal buttons of his waistcoat were shot 
off. He kept his clothes until he was tired of show- 
ing them, and died in 1808, aged 72 years." 

The house of the survivor, Munroe, where he used 
to tell the tale of the great fight, but little changed 
in itself or in its surroundings, still stands by the 
road that "leads from Salem to Reading," next west 
of the mansion of George L. Hawkes. 

Across the field from Munroe's house to the south 
near the Saugus River, there is an old house which 
was the home of another Minute Man of that day, 
Jonathan Tarbell, who stood by the side of his brother- 
in-law, Samuel Cook, of the Danvers Company, whose 
name heads the list of these Danvers martyrs upon 
the Lexington Monument in Peabody. 

Sturdy artisans were raising the frame of that 
edifice a century before the star of Napoleon Bona- 
parte set in final darkness upon the field of Waterloo. 
The snows of a hundred and fifty bleak winters had 
blown upon it when Grant and Lee met at Appo- 
mattox. And Appomattox to those living to-day 
seems like history. As a church edifice it has only 
two rivals in the State in point of age. The stout 
old building ought to stand for many generations. 
It has been the Council Chamber of a homogenous 
people. Other elements will naturally mingle in the 
assemblies in the new Town House. May those who 
dwell here hereafter, be as pure-minded and as happy 
as our fathers were ! 



279 



JOHN ENDICOTT AND THE RED CROSS 
ENSIGN. 




! N THE histories of New England, the incident 
of cutting the cross from the English ensign 
by John Endicott, is a dramatic feature. The 
scene and its meaning have, however, been somewhat 
distorted by the poetic imagination or the local draw- 
ings of the story-tellers. In that interesting book, 
"The Old Landmarks of Boston," by implication, if 
not by direct assertion, Mr. Drake locates the act in 
Boston. The same inference is drawn from many 
other works relating to our Colonial history. In each, 
it is the stern Governor who mutilates the royal 
banner of England. 

As a matter of fact, the affair did not happen in 
Boston, and Endicott was not Governor. As near as 
we can now glean from the past — and the record is 
clearer than that of any other people of the seven- 
teenth century, for there yet exist the journal, can- 
did and conscientious, of John Winthrop, and a cloud 
of contemporaneous black-letter witnesses, friendly 
and hostile — there was a deep, prophetic motive 
underlying this seemingly impetuous act of a hot- 
headed Puritan. 

The scene was the training-field at Salem ; the 
perpetrator of the sacrilegious act was the Puritan 

281 



Hearths and Homes 

captain, John Endicott ; the instigator was the pastor 
of Salem church, Roger Williams ; the attendants 
were Endicott's train band ; the most reliable relator 
was John Winthrop ; the time was early autumn, 
1634, a year earlier than the date of any extant 
writing of Oliver Cromwell. 

As near as Boston and Salem are to-day, the hap- 
penings of one day at Salem in Colonial times were not 
reported in Boston till several days had passed. An 
extract from Governor Winthrop's journal will best 
describe the remoteness of the two settlements : - 

" October 25, 1631. The governour with Capt. 
Underhill and others of the officers went on foot to 
Saugus, and next day to Salem, where they were 
bountifully entertained by Capt. Endicott, etc., and 
the 28th they returned to Boston by the ford at 
Saugus River and so over at Mistick." 

The earliest dated manuscript bearing upon this 
matter, which has escaped moths and paper mills, is 
a letter written November 6, 1634, by John Winthrop, 
to his son John, " at Mr. Downing, his chamber in the 
Inner Temple Lane, London," in which he writes : — 

" At the court it was informed that some of Salem 
had taken out a piece of the cross in their ensign ; 
whereupon we sent forth an attachment to bring in 
the parties at the next court, where they are like to 
be punished for their indiscreet zeal, for the people 
are generally offended with it." 

Mr. Winthrop's words were to be read in England. 
He does not say that the people are generally offended 

282 



of Old Lynn 

with the act in consequence of which " some of Salem 
are like to be punished," but they are offended at the 
"indiscreet zeal," which is quite another matter. 
Under date November 27, 1634, Dudley being Gov- 
ernor, Winthrop wrote in his journal : — 

" The assistants met at the governour's to advise 
about the defacing of the cross in the ensign at 
Salem, where (taking advice of some of the min- 
isters) we agreed to write to Mr. Downing in Eng- 
land of the truth of the matter, under all our hands, 
that, if occasion were, he might show it in our excuse ; 
for therein we expressed our dislike of the thing, and 
our purpose to punish the offenders, yet with as much 
wariness as we might, being doubtful of the lawful 
use of the cross in an ensign though we were clear 
that fact as concerning the matter, was very unlawful." 

The Mr. Downing referred to, was Emanuel Down- 
ing, a London barrister, the brother-in-law of Win- 
throp. He seems to have been the counsel for the 
colony at home, who was to smooth the troubled 
waters if complaint was made to the king. He 
afterwards came over and lived for several years in 
Salem, where he was held in great esteem, and was 
often in the General Court. He was the father of the 
celebrated Sir George Downing, ambassador of both 
Cromwell and Charles II, in Holland. If we accept 
the adage, "like father, like son," the historical 
reader will believe that the Colony chose a wily agent 
to represent it in England with as much " wariness " 
as might be, we " being doubtful of the lawful use of 
the cross," though clear as to the "unlawful" cutting. 

283 



Hearths and Homes 

It is the fashion to say that there were no lawyers 
here in the early days. Winthrop and Downing 
were bred in the legal profession, and we judge, apt 
scholars in the legal science. The ancient historian, 
Prince, says of John Winthrop : " He had an agree- 
able education, but the accomplishments of a lawyer 
were those wherewith heaven made his chief oppor- 
tunities to be serviceable." The lawyers played an 
important part in the founding of the Colony, and 
in framing the code of laws founded on the laws of 
Moses, rather than on those of England. The learn- 
ing of William H. Whitmore, record commissioner of 
the City of Boston, has so swept away the cobwebs 
of ages, that we can see clearly that the evolution 
of our laws, contrary to the common belief, is due to 
men trained to the law, rather than in the pulpit. 
Rev. Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich, the now recognized 
author of the " Body of Liberties," was graduated 
at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, A.M., in 1603. 
He studied and practised law, and Candler says he 
was an " utter barrister." Governor Richard Belling- 
ham, of the magistrates, who, after Ward, had the 
greatest share in the work, was bred a lawyer, and 
was recorder of Boston in England, from 1625 to 
1633 ; hence his fit and natural connection with the 
first compilation of our laws. 

It will do no harm for the student of our early 
days to investigate, with the understanding that all 
virtue and all knowledge are not to be found in the 
musty tomes and often pedantic long-windedness of 
the divines who did most of the writing and talking. 

284 



of Old Lynn 

The lawyers were employed to throw dust in the 
eyes of prerogative and shield the Colony, while the 
ministers fought the devil and Christianized the 
Indian in the new journey to the promised land. 

Then, on December 12, 1634, Winthrop writes to 
his son John, another lawyer, at the house of his 
uncle Downing, in Lincoln Fields, near the Golden 
Lion Tavern, London, to apprise him of the action 
of the magistrates. 

"We met last week to consider the business of 
the ensign at Salem, and have written a letter to 
my brother Downing, wherein under our hands, we 
signify our dislike to the action and our purpose to 
punish the offenders." 

Next, under date M. 1, 4, 1634, Winthrop's journal 

says : — 

" Mr. Endicott was called to answer for defacing 
the cross in the ensign, but because the court could 
not agree about the thing, whether the ensign should 
be laid by, in regard that many refused to follow 
them, the whole cause was deferred to the next 
general court ; and commissioners for military affairs 
gave order, in the meantime, that all the ensigns 
should be laid aside," etc. 

Downing, in England, was cannily representing 
the devotion of the Colony, while the council, here, 
was deferring to the next General Court, and in the 
meantime, ordering all the ensigns to be laid aside ! 
Surely, our fathers did not love that red cross ensign 
even then. 

285 



Hearths and Homes 

Next, came the General Court at Newtown, Mo. 3, 6, 
1635. Mr. Haynes was chosen Governor, and Mr. Bell- 
ingham, Deputy, and Winthrop relates the trial and 
punishment of Endicott. 

" Mr. Endicott was left out of the board of assis- 
tants, and called into question about the defacing of 
the cross in the ensign : and a committee was chosen 
viz. : every town chose one (which yet were voted by 
all the people,) and the magistrates chose four, who, 
taking the charge to consider of the offence, and 
the censure due to it, and to certify the court, after- 
one or two hours time, made report to the court, 
that they found his offence to be great, viz., rash 
and without discretion, taking upon him more author- 
ity than he had, and not seeking advice of the court, 
etc.— uncharitable in that he, judging the cross, etc., 
to be a sin, did content himself to have reformed it at 
Salem, not taking care that others might be brought 
out of it also : laying a blemish upon the rest of the 
magistrates, as if they would suffer idolatry etc., and 
giving occasion to the state of England to think ill 
of us: for which they adjudged him worthy of 
admonition, and to be disabled for one year from 
bearing any public office : declining any _ heavier 
sentence because they were persuaded he did it out 
of tenderness of conscience and not of any evil 
intent." 

The reasons given for condemning Endicott give 
many hints as to the workings of the Puritan intel- 
lect. The grave magistrates were much of the same 
mind as he in regard to the " sin " of the cross, but 
they deemed him " uncharitable," in that he attempted 
to make the reform on his own account and laid a 



286 



of Old Lynn 

blemish upon his associates, " as if they would suffer 
idolatry," etc. How much their own pricked con- 
sciences were offended by Endicott's forwardness we 
can only surmise from the nature of their censure. 
Endicott was nominally disgraced as a sop to the 
dragon beyond the ocean. 

As soon as the king was muzzled so that he could 
do no harm to the Colony, Endicott, in 1641, became 
Deputy Governor and then Governor. Endicott died 
March 15, 1665, in office, having served longer than 
any other Colonial Governor before or after him, and 
with the single exception of 1635, the year after 
the flag episode, having been a magistrate since he 
landed at Salem, in 1628, as Governor of the Salem 
Plantation. Endicott shares with Winthrop and 
Dudley the unique distinction of having been a 
member of the standing council, the only executive 
office for life ever created in the Colony. Winthrop 
and Dudley were so chosen May 25, 1636, Endicott, 
May 17, 1637, "but none others were ever added." 

John Endicott was as distinctively the captain of 
Massachusetts as Miles Standish was of Plymouth. 
John Endicott, at Salem, was as truly the militant 
head of the Colony as was John Winthrop its civic 
ruler, as long as the latter lived ; then Endicott 
assumed both functions. Endicott was bold, impet- 
uous, a scorner of subterfuges. Winthrop was cool, 
politic, with an eye across the water, alert to guard 
the infant Colony from arousing the wrath of the king. 

If Endicott had waited nine years, his " rash " act 
would have been approved by every man in the 

287 



Hearths and Homes 

Colony, including the prudent Winthrop and his legal 
correspondent, Brother Downing, formerly of the 
Inner Temple, but now of Salem. Roger Williams 
and John Endicott were in the advance guard of 
Puritan thinkers, who, in England, would have been 
chaplain and captain among the invincible Ironsides. 
Within a few years their brethren at home — the 
most devout generation of Englishmen the world 
ever saw — under the leadership of the greatest all- 
around man that the English-speaking race ever pro- 
duced — Oliver Cromwell — were tearing down every 
cross in the mother country. On the 4th of May, 
1643, as Carlyle says : " Cheapside Cross, Charing 
Cross, and other monuments of popish idolatry were 
torn down by authority, troops of soldiers sounding 
their trumpets and all the people shouting." 

Endicott simply did an act which all earnest men 
approved in their hearts, and antedated like scenes 
in England. Endicott's soldiers were godly men, 
saturated with the Puritan dread of Rome. Under 
the Stuart they had felt the deadly night-shade. 
They had braved the perils of the trackless ocean 
to avoid its contact. They were fighting novel 
dangers in a new world with savage foes and mys- 
terious forces all about them. They thought it an 
ill omen to go forth to battle under the blood-stained 
emblem of popery. 

It has been one of the mysteries how Endicott, the 
straightest Puritan of all the Puritans, and Roger 
Williams, the kindly founder of Rhode Island, should 
have been one in their feeling in this matter, and 

288 



of Old Lynn 

both under the ban together for the same offence. 
This little incident furnished the first opportunity 
that the authorities had to get a civil grip upon 
Williams. The other troubles were ecclesiastical. 
To put it in the words of Hutchinson : — 

" But what gave just occasion to the civil power 
to interpose was his (Roger Williams) influencing 
Mr. Endicott, one of the magistrates and a member 
of his church, to cut the cross out of the king's 
colors, as being a relic of anti-Christian superstition." 

Williams had advised Endicott to outrage the 
ensign of royalty. That was verging upon high 
treason, if there had been any such crime as high 
treason known to our fathers. But there was no 
such crime in the laws of Moses, and consequently 
such an offence is not mentioned in the " Body of 
Liberties," which was formulated a few years later, 
in 1641. There was also a subtler reason why treason 
did not appear in their code of laws, which soon found 
ample expression in regicide across the water. The 
divine rights of kings were not to be bolstered up by 
maintaining a favorite crime in the statutes of the free 
commonwealth. Hutchinson says in his history that 
high treason is not mentioned. Before the colonists 
had agreed upon the body of laws, the king's author- 
ity in England was at an end ; conspiracy to invade 
their own commonwealth, or any treacherous, per- 
fidious attempt to alter and subvert fundamentally 
the frame of their polity and government was made 
a capital offence. 

289 



Hearths and Homes 

Again the not too friendly Hutchinson relates : — 

" Many of the proposals were such as to imply that 
they thought themselves at free liberty, without any 
charter from the crown, to establish such sort of 
government as they thought proper, and to form a 
new state as fully to all intents and purposes as if 
they had been in a state of nature, and were making 
their first entrance into civil society." 

The Archbishop of Canterbury (Laud) kept a jealous 
eye over New England. One Burdett, of Piscataqua, 
was a correspondent of his. A copy of a letter to the 
archbishop written by Burdett was found in his study, 
and is to this effect, viz. : — 

" That he delayed going to England that he might 
fully inform himself of the state of the place as to 
allegiance, for it was not new discipline which was 
aimed at, but sovereignty, and that it was accounted 
perjury and treason in their general court to speak 
of appeals to the king." 

Laud thanked him for his care, and promised to 
redress the disorder. But before long the arch- 
bishop's own disorders and those of his royal master 
were redressed. 

In all the records that come down to us from the 
early days, there is manifest, in spite of all masks, 
a purpose to create a free Puritan commonwealth 
in New England. The unlooked-for triumph of Par- 
liament and Cromwell over king-craft and priest- 
craft in England removed the pressing dangers to 
tender consciences and delayed absolute freedom here 

290 



of Old Lynn 

for later generations. Another century was to see 
independence accomplished, not on account of king 
or church, but upon the question equally vital of 
taxation without representation. Endicott's bold act, 
from the earnest Puritan standpoint, was a blazing 
torch, which pointed the way in the heroic age when, 
under the God of Moses, England's best and bravest 
tore away forever the illusions from pinchbeck roy- 
alty and formalist prelacy. 



291 



HIGH ROCK TOWER. 




years ago, during Mayor Shepherd's 
administration, I expected to be called upon 
to take part in the dedication of High Rock 
to the people. The then Mayor, the City Council 
and the Park Commissioners, were content with what 
had then been accomplished. 

The present City Council has completed the title 
and crowned the spot with an edifice of interest to 
student and sightseer. 

As people of my time of life are not apt to improve 
in expression, perhaps I cannot do better than to give 
the substance of my deferred talk upon this auspicious 
day. 

I should then have said — 

All that is essential of the High Rock property, 
with suitable approaches (save a little slice of the 
face of the rock), is now in the keeping of the 
present and future Lynn. It has been reserved for 
you, sir, to still forever the controversies of the past as 
to range lines, and to round out the people's domain. 

Napoleon said that England was a nation of shop- 
keepers. The phrase became an aphorism, though 

1 Dedication of High Rock Tower, December 16, 1905. Accept- 
ance on behalf of the Park Commissioners. 

293 



Hearths and Homes 

the statement was as false and mendacious as was 
the life of the sayer. Foreign writers flippantly 
say that Americans worship the dollar in place of 







4^ „> ■»/ 



God. Let the action that we note refute that lie so 
far as Lynn is concerned. Much is said of the 
strenuous life, of the utilitarian age, and of the 

294 



of Old Lynn 

crowding unrest of our people, as if nothing else 
was sought for save commercial or material triumphs 
over the rest of our fellows. Our fathers were of 
a strenuous race and habit, as they needed to be to 
keep the wolf (either as a metaphor or a fact) from 
the door, in this bleak climate of ours. They tilled 
the not too rich soil in the proper seasons. They 
fished upon the deep in storm and sunshine, and 
they made shoes when out-of-door life was impossible. 

Lynn was the scene of the first iron-works estab- 
lished on the soil of America. It has long been 
noted as the seat of the largest ladies' shoe manu- 
facturing output in the world. Its name on elec- 
trical appliances has gone around the globe. But 
it was reserved for something else to raise it from 
the plane of a prosperous manufacturing centre to 
that of an aesthetic community, appreciating nature 
and planning wisely for the future. 

Lynn was the pioneer in the establishment of a 
great communal forest, where, within sight of the 
landing place of Endicott and Winthrop and of all 
the devoted Puritans who planted New England, 
a promising attempt is being made to restore a wild 
woodland of pine, hemlock, oak, hickory, beech, horn- 
beam and all the other native trees that have their 
habitat upon our hillsides and valleys. 

We have prospered and waxed strong in the hand- 
ling of leather, but in response to the sneers of the 
people who say we talk leather, smell leather and 
know nothing but leather, we point to the Great 
Woods, to Oceanside, and then, perhaps best of all, 

295 



Hearths and Homes 

to old High Rock, once the people's forum by suf- 
ferance, now of right. 

As compared with our early Colonial neighbors, 
Boston and Salem, we have no occasion to blush for 
the loss of our outlooks. The Beacon Hill of Boston 
has been shoveled down, and though a superb State 
House stands upon the diminished site, even its gilded 
dome scarcely affords an outlook on account of the sky- 
scraping modern buildings about it ; while Salem's 
proud Castle Hill is being blasted away by a stone- 
crushing company. 

Those who have ties of birthright or citizenship in 
Lynn can truly claim to be associated with no mean 
city. An extensive European traveler once observed 
to a man whose memory Lynn cherishes as one of 
her historians, that, with the single exception of 
Vesuvius, the view from High Rock excelled that at 
the Bay of Naples. If this traveler had been privi- 
leged to stand on Black Rock, Nahant, on a summer 
evening and watch the gorgeous westering sun red- 
dening the placid water of Lynn harbor, gilding the 
spires of the old town, and, before it set behind the 
hills of Saugus, bathing in oriental color and glori- 
fying the crown of High Rock, he might in truth have 
withdrawn his exception and pronounced our picture 
as peerless, as have many other world-wide observers. 

Not grudgingly, not moved by partisan clamor, not 
stirred by sectional pride, but actuated and inspired 
by love of home and of the eternal fitness of things, 
looking upon the past and into the future, the city 
dedicates three acres of this adamantine hill — this 

296 




High Rock Tower (1905) 



of Old Lynn 

keystone of the grand arch of Lynn's sentiment and 
reverence— to the use of the people for all coming time. 

Mr. Drake makes a query and a reply, "Will it 
pay?" And I say it will pay in solid nuggets of 
healthful enjoyment, even if no higher aspirations 
are developed, in standing, where, at every instant, 
man and his works diminish, while those of the 
Creator expand before you. 

Other headlands there are along our picturesque 
New England coast. Wherever a rocky barrier resists 
old ocean, from Bald Head Cliff, in York, to Bailey's 
Hill, Nahant, the angry waves battle with each tide. 

Agamenticus rears its lofty head as a guide for 
mariners approaching the coast. 

Town Hill, Ipswich, reveals a charming landscape, 
and in a long reach the warning lights from Boone 
to Squam. The Blue Hills of Milton look down 
upon the Neponset, and the land the Indian loved so 
well, and upon innumerable thriving communities. 
All these the eye grasps by long sweeps. 

High Rock is a part of us, is in touch with every 
pulsation of the people. It dominates Lynn as the 
famed castle of Auld Scotia's capital, Edinburgh, 
the home of Burns and of Scott. We may describe 
our heritage with our own Whittier as " the land of 
the forest and the rock." 

Upon this spot have stood all men who desired to 
see Lynn, from that June day in 1629, when Edmund 
and Francis Ingalls, William Dixey, and William and 
John Wood wandered around the coast from Endi- 
cott's colony, seeking land for a home. From that 

297 



Hearths and Homes 

day to this it has been a Mecca to which the return- 
ing native and the stranger within our gates have 
climbed with uncovered heads. 

Mr. Mayor, on behalf of the Park Commissioners, I 
accept the future care of the High Rock Observatory. 



•_"..- 



PART III 
Hearths and Homes of Old Lynn 



INDIVIDUAL SKETCHES 

Three men of Lynn, of the generation which has passed away, have been 

of help to the author. Of each an imperfect tribute may 

be pardoned. They were all diligent and 

competent delvers in the history 

of the old Town : — 

JAMES ROBINSON NEWHALL 
CYRUS MASON TRACY 
SAMUEL HAWKES 




James Robinson Newhall 



JAMES ROBINSON NEWHALL. J 




jHE kind invitation to join you at your annual 
gathering upon Franklin's birthday gives me 
the fittest occasion that could occur to pay 
a tribute to the memory of your first President. 

I use the word " fittest" deliberately, and if you 
have patience to bear with me, and if I make myself 
intelligible, you will appreciate why I consider this 
the place to speak of your and my life-long friend. 

James Robinson Newhall, who died at his home in 
Lynn, October 24, 1893, needs no eulogium from those 
who survive him. He has left behind him a record 
that will shine when we and our words, even though 
they should be strikingly brilliant, shall be utterly 
forgotten. This will happen, not because he was a 
great man in any common acceptation of the term, 
but mainly by virtue of the fact of his making a 
more diligent use of the talent intrusted to him than 
most men. 

A study of such a life, so well rounded out and 
accomplished, if even imperfectly traced, cannot but 
be an incentive to emulation by others. 

To say that he was born of "poor but honest" 



1 A memorial address delivered before the Lynn Press Associa- 
tion at Lynn, Mass., upon the anniversary of Benjamin Franklin's 
birthday, January 17, 1894. 

301 



Hearths and Homes 

parents would be but to utter a truism which might 
as well be uttered of any boy born in Lynn on Christ- 
mas day, 1809. Everybody in Lynn then was poor, 
if by poor we mean the reverse of the modern sense 
of rich — that is, being the holder of stocks, bonds or 
bank accounts. Everybody was poor in those days. 
The States had scarcely rallied from the drain of 
men and means that was occasioned by the War of 
the Revolution, when the gigantic struggle between 
England and the Corsican marvel of war convulsed 
the whole civilized world. Between the upper and 
nether millstones — the common prey of France and 
England — the growing commerce of the infant repub- 
lic was swept from the seas and the whole country 
was impoverished. Two years before, Congress had 
closed the ports of the United States against the 
clearance of all vessels. In the year of his birth, 
Congress repealed the " embargo law " and substituted 
an act of non-intercourse with France and England. 

The population of Lynn — and Lynn then included 
Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscott and Nahant — at the 
time of his birth was only about four thousand. 
The people were farmers in summer and shoemakers 
in winter. 

The shoes made here in 1810 numbered one million 
pairs and were of the value of $800,000. By the 
United States census of 1890, it appears that the 
aggregate value of goods, shoes and allied industries, 
amounted to over thirty-one millions. This takes no 
account of the new industry, the Thomson-Houston 
Electric Company, which in 1892 produced a value 

302 



of Old Lynn 

of over twelve millions of dollars and employed, as 
its average number of hands for the year, four thou- 
sand people, a number equal to the whole population 
of the town in 1810. 

In another and better sense than the possession of 
mere dollars by his parents, the future writer of the 
" Annals of Lynn" was fortunate in his birth. With 
a modest pride in the stock from which he sprang — 
without which he would have been unfitted for what 
was destined to be his magnum opus — he said, in an 
autobiographical sketch, his father's name was Ben- 
jamin and he was a direct descendant from Thomas, 
the first white person born here. His mother was a 
daughter of Joseph Hart, who descended from Samuel, 
one of the first engaged at the ancient Iron Works. 
Both of his grandmothers were granddaughters of 
Hon. Ebenezer Burrill, a man conspicuous in Colo- 
nial times and brother of the beloved speaker. 

In the old Hart house, as in many another on the 
old Colonial highway between Salem and Boston, 
was an open attic, with boxes and barrels filled with 
quaint and curious manuscripts that the previous 
generations of occupants had left behind them. They 
were apparently of no value, yet they might be title 
deeds, or plans, or diaries, or papers that some time 
might be called for. So they were bundled away 
into the unused lumber room — nesting places or 
food for mice — till some charmingly loquacious Old- 
buck of Monkbarns or an inquisitive boy should 
disturb their dusty recess. 

Reminiscences of the earlier days lingered about 

303 



Hearths and Homes 

this old house when the Judge came upon the scene. 
Travelers belated or hungry on the way from Boston 
to the East often found shelter and food beneath its 
roof. The epicurean Judge, Samuel Sewall of the 
witchcraft time, has recorded in his diary his enter- 
tainment here on several occasions. Other guests of 
eminence lingered under the branches of the great 
buttonwood in the yard, partook of the good cheer 
within the house and discussed current topics. Some 
of the accumulating paper litter that probably troubled 
the careful housewife, though she did not venture to 
burn anything of writing, may have been left by 
guests, and thus have had a wider than mere local 
interest. 

How much the subject of our sketch found in the 
attic he never told anyone, but was apparently willing- 
through his life for the matter to remain an open 
question to mystify his readers. I have, however, 
more than a strong suspicion that he derived nothing 
from the dead written hand. 

At the age of eleven, as he wrote, he left the 
parental roof with his worldly possessions in a bundle- 
handkerchief to make his way in the wide world, 
his mother having died a year or two before, and 
his father having a large family to provide for. 

Before he was fifteen years old he had made his 
way into the office of the Salem Gazette — the leading- 
newspaper establishment in the County — and was 
diligently learning the art and mystery of printing. 
Seventy years later he was true to his first love and 
it was still his work and recreation to set type. 

304 



of Old Lynn 

We talk about trades nowadays ; but the old phrase 
" art and mystery " is vastly more appropriate, when 
we allude to the assembling of little pieces of lead in 
such a manner that the result is the expression of the 
best thought of the brain of man on the fair-printed 
page. Where else are the brain-work and the hand- 
work so blended in such close touch, as when deft 
fingers transform bits of dull lead into golden thoughts 
that may be immortal ? 

From the Gazette office, seeking a wider knowledge 
of book printing than our County then afforded, he 
went to Boston, where, before he had reached his 
majority, he became foreman of one of the principal 
book establishments. One of his duties in this office 
was that of proof-reader — an important step in the 
practical training which was to fit him for authorship. 

A proof-reader holds a delicate and responsible 
position. Upon his shoulders the public pile errors 
of omission and commission, of compositor and author, 
bad spelling, bad grammar, bad rhetoric, bad punctua- 
tion, bad spacing and the myriad flaws that creep into 
printed matter unless the proof-reader is Argus-eyed. 

In the latest batch of published letters of Horace 
Greeley, there is one addressed to a young man 
who aspired to the position of a proof-reader on the 
Tribune. Here is Mr. Greeley's appreciative tribute 
to the occupation of a proof-reader, in reply to the 
application : — 

"As to proof-reading, I think a first-rate proof- 
reader could always find a place in our concern within 

305 



Hearths and Homes 

a month. But the place requires far more than 
you can learn ; it requires an universal knowledge 
of facts, names and spelling. Do you happen to 
know off-hand that Stephens of Georgia spells his 
name with a 'ph' and Stevens of Michigan with a 
*v' in the middle? Do you know that Eliot of 
Massachusetts has but one T in his name, while 
Elliot in Kentucky has two ? Do you know the poli- 
tics and prejudices of Oliver of Missouri, and Oliver 
of New York, respectively, so well that when your 
proof says ' Mr. Oliver ' said so and so in the House, 
you know whether to insert 'of Mo.' or 'of N.Y.' 
after his name? Would you choose to strike out 
'of Mo.' and put in 'of N.Y.,' if you perceive the 
speech taking a particular direction respecting slav- 
ery, which shows that it must be wrongly attributed 
in the telegraphic dispatch? My friend, if you are 
indeed qualified for a first-rate proof-reader, or can 
easily make yourself so, you need never fear. But 
do n't fancy the talent and knowledge required for 
a mere secretary of state, president, or any such 
trust, will be sufficient." 

In the Boston office, the young Newhall was in 
touch and familiar with such men as Dr. Channing, 
Dr. Bowditch, Francis J. Grund, the Cambridge pro- 
fessors, N. P. Willis, Samuel S. Goodrich and other 
literary celebrities of the time, of whom he treasured 
many pleasant reminiscences which he had in manu- 
script and was preparing to publish at the time of 
his death. 

Like other young printers of the earlier days, he 
was somewhat of a rover. From Boston he went to 
New York. In the Conference office of that city, 

306 



of Old Lynn 

then the largest in the country, he had the reputation 
of being the fastest compositor in the office. 

In New York he did editorial work, and in that city 
he learned much from the advice and friendly counsels 
of Major M. M. Noah, long known as the Nestor of the 
American Press. 

Those of the present generation who have seen the 
Judge on the Bench of the Police Court, or assisting 
in the offices of his beloved church, or in social gath- 
erings, or walking about our streets, can scarcely 
realize the Bohemian life with which it was his for- 
tune to mingle in his early manhood. 

Bearing in mind that he was free from the venial 
faults of youth, that all his life he was pure in thought 
and act, it sounds like romance to relate that one of 
his companions in midnight strolls in New York was 
the " Good Gray Poet," he who wrote " My Captain," 
that eloquent lament that marks the martyrdom of 
Lincoln, in which were these lines : — 

"Exult, shores! and ring, O bells! 
But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck; my captain lies 
Fallen, cold and dead." 

and the same who wrote of himself : — 

"Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, 
Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking, and 

breeding, 
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and 

women, or apart from them, 
No more modest than immodest." 

Like that other printer, " Poor Richard," the world- 
known philosopher, whose birthday you proudly 

307 



Hearths and Homes 

remember to-day, and like him, a tramping printer in 
search of a job, Mr. Newhall wandered as far as 
Philadelphia. 

He gathered knowledge of men and affairs where- 
ever he went. He lectured. He came back to Lynn 
and bought the Mirror of his friend, Charles F. 
Lummus, the first Lynn printer, whose handsome 
face is placed beside the author, facing the title 
page of the last edition of the " History of Lynn." 

It was in 1832 that Mr. Newhall bought the Mirror, 
the first paper printed in Lynn. It may be interesting 
to those whose daily labor is about the great presses 
and establishments of to-day, to relate that he paid two 
hundred dollars for the whole establishment, which, 
as he has recorded, was quite as much as it was worth. 

When we say that the subscription list of the Mirror 
amounted to about four hundred, which number the 
new Item press throws off in a minute, and that all 
the work in the office, jobs, newspaper and all, could 
be done by the publisher and one hand, it is easy to 
see that in those days there was not a mine of gold 
or even of silver, in a Lynn newspaper. 

Not the least of the debts Lynn owes to Mr. New- 
hall, is the kindly discriminating sketch which he has 
given us of Charles F. Lummus, the first publisher 
and editor of Lynn. 

The profession of the law, in which he settled 
down at last, shows something of the growth and 
broadening of Lynn during the lifetime of one indi- 
vidual. In 1808, the year before his birth, Lynn's first 
lawyer came to town. This was Benjamin Merrill. 

308 



of Old Lynn 

He remained here, however, only a few months, when 
he removed to Salem, where he became an eminent 
and respected practitioner. In 1845, Harvard con- 
ferred upon him the degree of LL.D. 

Of his leaving Lynn, Mr. Newhall has recorded : — 

" The occasion of his removal from Lynn, as he 
informed me, a few years before his death, _ was 
somewhat singular. A deputation of the citizens 
called on him with the request that he would leave 
the place, it being apprehended that evil and strife 
would abound wherever a lawyer's tent was pitched. 
He took the matter in good part and soon departed. 
The people of Lynn afterward made some amends 
for their uncivil proceeding, by entrusting a large 
share of their best legal business to his hands. He 
served them faithfully, and never seemed to enter- 
tain the least ill feeling towards any here. He died 
lamented by a large circle who had received benefits 
at his hand, and left a considerable estate. He was 
never married, which seemed the more singular, as 
he was eminently social in his habits." 

In May, 1847, thirty-eight years later, when Mr. 
Newhall was admitted to the Bar at an age when 
most lawyers are at the period of greatest activity, 
there were only three lawyers in practice here. They 
were Jeremiah C. Stickney, Benjamin F. Mudge and 
Thomas B. Newhall. 

Though few in number they were each able in their 
special lines of work. Mr. Mudge, who was the second 
Mayor of Lynn, had an extensive practice, but his 
love for science was greater than that for the law, 
and he went West and became Professor of Geology 

309 



Hearths and Homes 

and Associated Sciences, in the State Agricultural 
College of Kansas. 

Hon. Thomas B. Newhall, the last of the three, 
became Judge of the Lynn Police Court upon its 
creation in 1849. At the same time, Benjamin F. 
Mudge and James R. Newhall were commissioned as 
special justices. Mr. T. B. Newhall, through a long 
life, adorned other positions of trust, such as the 
presidency of the Lynn Mutual Fire Insurance Com- 
pany and the Lynn Five Cents Savings Bank. He 
has the unique position of being the only man ever 
elected Mayor of Lynn, who declined the office. This 
happened in 1854. He was then in the office of 
Judge of the Police Court, and rightly conceiving 
the two positions to be incompatible, he declined the 
political office. 

Almost the last appearance in public of James R. 
Newhall, certainly the last when the members of the 
Bar were with him, was at the funeral of his prede- 
cessor as Judge — the Hon. Thomas B. Newhall — 
a few weeks before his own death. 

Mr. Stickney was, however, Mr. Newhall's particular 
friend. In his office he entered upon the study of law 
in 1844. For him he had a strong admiration which 
almost had the character of the awe with which 
Mr. Stickney impressed younger people and indeed 
most people with whom he came in contact. 

Mr. Stickney was a graduate of Harvard. He 
spent forty years in Lynn, in active and successful 
practice of law. He was devoted to his profession. 
He might have been a Judge ; he declined to accept 

310 



of Old Lynn 

the office of U.S. District Attorney for Massachu- 
setts tendered him by President Jackson. He only 
accepted such positions as would not interfere with 
his home work. He served in the General Court — 
that excellent training school for lawyers — two terms. 
He was our postmaster for fifteen years, then a 
position which added to the income without filching 
much time from business. He was the adviser of 
Mayor Hood and the authorities when we took on 
the forms of city government ; and, when the office 
was created in 1853, he was chosen as City Solicitor. 

The lives of Mr. Newhall and Mr. Stickney afford 
a striking example of the utter transitoriness of the 
lawyer's fame. Men, even now scarcely past middle 
life, can recall the adroit, persuasive, thoroughly 
equipped, eminently courteous and courtly Stickney. 
It is far within the line of truth to say that he was 
as able an all-round lawyer as ever practised in Lynn. 

Mr. Newhall, himself, would unquestionably have 
placed Mr. Stickney as the brightest legal luminary 
of Lynn, and have put a very deprecatory estimate 
upon his own rank. Yet such is the irony of fate 
that the student, who evolved quaint stories of the 
early days from his brain and put them into type, will, 
by virtue of such writing, ever be known as a lawyer, 
while the man who led the Bar will not leave even 
a tradition after another generation has passed away. 

Law was not Mr. Newhall's first love nor his last. 
Several reasons induced him to essay the profession. 
He was a first-class printer, he was a trained editorial 
writer; he was desirous of writing the Annals of 

311 



Hearths and Homes 

Lynn ; he had a mission to preserve the traditions of 
his native town ; there was no money in journalism 
in the Lynn of his day and capital was lacking to 
accomplish his projected work. Law, at least in 
those days, was an eminently respectable calling, an 
occupation for gentlemen, and the successful career 
of his friend Stickney was an incentive for him 
to try it. He established a good practice and was 
enabled to publish " Lin, or Jewels of the Third Plan- 
tation " in 1862, and the " History of Lynn," embody- 
ing and continuing the work of Alonzo Lewis, in 1865. 

In 1866, Thomas B. Newhall resigned his commission 
as Justice of the Lynn Police Court, and Governor 
Bullock appointed James R. Newhall to the position. 

The Bar of Lynn, when Mr. Newhall became Justice 
of the Police Court, was represented by the witty but 
erratic Isaac Brown, who had an office on Chestnut 
Street ; William Howland, the careful conveyancer, 
at the corner of Munroe and Market Streets ; Judge 
Thomas B. Newhall, who, upon resigning the judge- 
ship, established an office in the Ashcroft Building, 
at the corner of Market and Tremont Streets ; Dean 
Peabody, now Clerk of the Courts, located in Frazier's 
Building, corner of Market and Summer Streets ; 
Jeremiah C. Stickney and Minot Tirrell, Jr., in Central 
Square ; Eben Parsons, returned from meritorious 
service in the army, also located about that time on 
Union Street ; as well as your humble servant in 
Hill's Building. 

What proportion of influence in attaining this 
position was derived from his gentle and eminently 

312 



of Old Lynn 

respectable life, his attainments as a lawyer, or the 
reputation acquired from his books, it is useless to 
speculate. The office, which was for life unless sooner 
resigned, gave to him, freed from the uncertainties 
of the practice of the law, a respectable income and 
allowed sufficient leisure to prosecute and accomplish 
his literary work. 

In 1879, he was seventy years old and resigned his 
commission. Quiet, sedate old Lynn had vanished. 
A modern, hustling city with its ruder manners and 
babel of tongues had taken its place. The mild, 
scholarly, white-haired Judge found the atmosphere 
and concomitants of the new-style police court to be 
distasteful and discordant to a man of refined tastes 
and gentle ways. 

He retired with the respect of all the good people 
of Lynn. Thence on, for thirteen years, he lived— till 
the great change came — a serene yet busy life. His 
working hours were devoted to fresh literary compo- 
sition and in bringing out new editions of his " History" 
and " Lin." 

In 1883, being then seventy-three years old, he 
made the grand tour abroad, visiting the famous 
cities and renowned places in Europe, and extending 
his trip to interesting levantine points ; to Algiers 
and Malta on the Mediterranean ; and to Alexandria, 
Cairo and the Pyramids in Egypt. 

It was an eminently satisfactory episode in his life. 
Concerning it he wrote : " Though the tour was 
undertaken alone — for if alone one can, without let 
or hinderance, go how, when and where he pleases - 

313 



Hearths and Homes 

he everywhere received such gratifying civilities as 
could only lead to regrets that he had not earlier in 
life thus experimentally learned that, after all, men 
everywhere will, on the whole, rather contribute to 
make others happy than miserable. Such experience 
increases faith in human nature, and ought to diminish 
self-conceit." 

Fittingly, many years ago (1854), the Judge selected 
an historic spot for his home. Sadler's Rock perpet- 
uates the name of the first settler in the locality, and 
of Lynn's first Clerk of the Writs. Upon the south- 
western slope of this spur of porphyry, out of the 
adamantine material of the hill itself, Mr. Newhall 
erected the conspicuous mansion which overhangs 
the old town, as picturesque as a Norman keep of 
feudal England. 

Environment counts for something. Mr. Newhall 
was not exempt from the rule that they who love most 
suffer most. He lost, by early death, a promising boy, 
his only child. Thence on, his ambition was to leave 
to posterity a worthy portrayal of the ancient town. 

Fortunately for us, he did not have to hurry his 
work. Years of peace and comfort were granted 
him to dwell in that lofty asrie — to watch the sun 
rise over old High Rock and set beyond the Saugus 
hills, and observe the growth of Lynn, while he stood 
at the case in his cosy work-room and set his own 
type, from which more than two thousand stereo- 
typed pages remain to attest the character of the 
recreations of his leisure hours. 

How much of our civic life one long life covers ! 

314 



of Old Lynn 

Lynn is one of the oldest of the Bay towns, yet this life 
shows how much of our growth has been in the present 
century. We have shown our friend to have been the 
co-worker and associate with the first lawyer who put 
out his shingle here and with the first printer who set 
up his venerable Ramage press, which, the Judge said, 
looked as if Franklin might have worked at it. 

The book which has inseparably linked together 
the names of Alonzo Lewis and James R. Newhall, 
and has become a standard household necessity with 
our people, is called the " History of Lynn." It is a 
work that bears testimony to laborious research on 
the part of its compilers, especially of Mr. Lewis, 
who, in addition to antiquarian tastes, had a quality 
which is not usually allied with delving into the 
past. Mr. Lewis had the imaginative organ largely 
developed, as the phrenologist would say. If he had 
written much history he might have indulged in what 
is called in rhyme, poetic license, and is there allow- 
able, but which in prose, and particularly in historic 
composition, is not permitted. 

Except the introductory descriptive chapters, this 
work is not history in its broad sense, that is, a state- 
ment of the birth, growth and progress of the place, 
with philosophical inquiries respecting causes and 
effects, but just what it claims to be, the annals, 
which are simply the facts and events of each year, 
in strict chronological order, without observations by 
the annalist. 

The historic part of this work, whatever its value, 
is to be credited to Mr. Lewis. Mr. Newhall took the 

315 



Hearths and Homes 

" Annals " up where Mr. Lewis left them, that is, at 
the close of 1843. Thence on, the work is wholly by 
Mr. Newhall. 

Critics may say that the " Annals " do not give a 
true perspective of historic events or that things 
trivial occupy as much space as happenings that tend 
to color and affect the future. But that is not the 
fault of our annalist or any annalist ; it is inherent 
in this style of writing. The little events occur as 
well as the great acts, and it is the province of the 
annalist to be the recorder rather than the inter- 
preter or the prophet. 

For this kind of composition Mr. Newhall was 
peculiarly well adapted. Always a lover of the lore 
of the ancient town, his training had made him a 
swift typesetter, an accurate proof-reader, and a 
discriminating editor. These were the very acquire- 
ments that are essential to him who would patiently, 
from day to day, and from year to year, select and 
jot down the occurrences of the locality, and sift and 
cull those things which somebody, by and by, may 
want to know about. Steady as a clock from his 
very youth, methodical and painstaking even in the 
smallest details, he not only scissored and scrap- 
booked everything which his sharp eyes saw, but he 
made an exhaustive index, without which such a 
book, however well written, is almost wholly value- 
less ; but with which even the dullest narration of 
town life becomes of value to the student. 

In addition to the " Annals," in the 1865 edition, 
and more extensively in the 1883 and 1890 volumes, 

316 



of Old Lynn 

he gave many slight biographical sketches. The 
habits and ways of those who walked the boards of 
the stage before we came upon the scenes have a 
peculiar fascination for us. What he has done in 
this line has been well done, and much that he has 
recorded in this vein would have been lost if it had 
not been for his pen ; that is, the personal incidents 
concerning many old worthies could not now be 
gathered by any living person. His own life covered 
a large part of this century, and his retentive memory 
seized upon all that men, old when the century began, 
had to relate. 

In the History there are few sins of commission. 
Of course, there are some sins of omission ; for 
instance, one which was called to my attention by 
the librarian of our public library, who had occasion 
to look for something relating to one of the foremost 
men of Lynn of his time, one whom people not yet 
old can remember, a man who held for twenty odd 
years what was then the most conspicuous public 
office — that of postmaster, Of Deacon Jonathan 
Bacheller not a word appears, save as one in the 
list of officers, in either edition. 1 

Exceptions, however, only prove the rule. Mr. 
Newhall's execution of his task is a creditable per- 
formance, but it is not a remarkable one. Somebody 
else might have had the plodding industry and liter- 
ary taste and have done as well. 

X A satisfactory explanation of this apparent injustice has 
recently been given me by Mr. Newhall's literary executor. 

317 



Hearths and Homes 

Upon the writing of that book, Mr. Newhall could 
not have obtained the pedestal which he will in future 
occupy with students and scholars. Mr. Newhall's 
literary fame will be always secure. He wrote one 
book which will forever be a classic in New England 
bibliography. 

" Lin, or Jewels of the Third Plantation," by Obadiah 
Oldpath, is a book, which, as we get away from the 
ways, habits and speech of the period which it depicts, 
will steadily gain in value. 

In the second edition, the author acknowledges his 
appreciation of the manner in which the first was 
received, and states that one of the most flattering- 
expressions concerning it came from the lips of an 
aged Quaker preacher, who, taking him by the hand, 
exclaimed, " I must tell thee that I Ve both laughed 
and cried over thy book." And then he naively adds 
that he was, nevertheless, led to fear that the scope 
and purpose were not in all cases fully understood. 

That scope and purpose he throws light upon in 
these words : — 

" By a strict adherence to barren facts in the his- 
tory of a people, much of the true spirit may remain 
undeveloped. Traditions and inferential elucidations 
often form a most valuable backing for the mirror 
that is to reflect a given period ; and those may not 
find place in a stately history. While it is not claimed 
that direct authority can be referred to for every 
statement it is confidently claimed that the whole 
is as truly illustrative of the people and their doings 
in those good old times, of their walks and their 
ways, as if every page were disfigured by reference 

318 



of Old Lynn 

to authorities. And by the same token, while the 
scenes are laid in a somewhat circumscribed vicinage, 
though one of the most picturesque and diversified in 
all New England, it is yet true that most extensive 
fields of historic interest are held in survey." 

As to the contemporary standing of this book, I 
desire to call a witness, first qualifying him as an 
expert : Name, William Whiting ; A.B., Harvard, 
1833 ; admitted to the Bar of Massachusetts and of 
U.S. Courts, 1838 ; Presidential Elector, 1868 ; LL.D., 
1872 ; Representative of Third Massachusetts District 
in Forty-third Congress ; Honorary Member of His- 
torical Societies of New York, Pennsylvania, Florida 
and Wisconsin ; Corresponding Member of the Phila- 
delphia Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, etc. ; 
President of the New England Historic-Genealogical 
Society ; Solicitor of the War Department at Wash- 
ington during the War of the Rebellion, and author 
of an important work, called " The War Powers of 
the President." 

Mr. Whiting was a lineal descendant of Samuel 
Whiting, the first minister of Lynn. As a labor of 
love he wrote and printed, not published, an elaborate 
and exhaustive " Memoir of Rev. Samuel Whiting, 
D.D., and of his Wife, Elizabeth St. John, with 
References to some of their English Ancestors and 
American Descendants." 

Mr. Whiting fortified his statements, like careful 
historians and pleaders, by numerous citations from 
competent authorities, such as the Massachusetts 
Records, the Histories of Hutchinson, Minot, Bancroft, 

319 



Hearths and Homes 

Drake, Thompson, Palfrey, Barry and Hubbard, 
Lewis's " Lynn," Winthrop's " Journal," Edward John- 
son's " Wonder- Working Providence," Savage's "Gen- 
ealogical Dictionary," De Tocqueville's " Democracy 
in America," Cotton Mather's " Magnalia," Upham's 
" Witchcraft," and all the standard writers upon New 
England life ; but his favorite and most quoted illus- 
trations are from the "Journal of Obadiah Turner." 

This famous Journal is a part of the contents of 
" Lin." It is such a vivid picture, so mirror-like in 
its representation of early Colonial life, so true in 
its terse, idiomatic, provincial English, that it is no 
wonder that it impressed the profound lawyer and his- 
toric-genealogical scholar with its power and reliability. 

Mr. Whiting also gives entries from the Journal of 
•Thomas Newhall. This Journal, like the other, sin- 
gularly realistic and fascinating to students of the 
olden days, is a part of " Lin." Mr. Whiting quotes 
entire several pages from what he truly styles " the 
invaluable Journal" of Mr. Turner, his ancestor's 
parishioner. 

Mr. Whiting is not the only witness who has uncon- 
sciously testified to the exquisite literary art, this per- 
fect reproduction of the thought of the old planters. 
Many learned men have asked where Mr. Newhall 
found these yellow, time-stained life stories of the 
olden time. 

In the England of George the Third, there lived a 
boy named Thomas Chatterton, who devoted all his 
time to acquiring a knowledge of English antiquities 
and obsolete language. He produced some wonderful 

320 



of Old Lynn 

fabrications which purported to be transcripts of 
ancient manuscripts, written by Thomas Rowley, a 
priest of the fifteenth century. The Rowleian poetry 
of this prodigy of letters, deceived men of literary 
pretensions, such as the virtuoso, Horace Walpole. 
Like Chatterton, Mr. Newhall made a fac-simile repro- 
duction of an earlier day, and the learned were in 
each case deceived as to the origin. There the 
resemblance ceases, for Chatterton studied to deceive, 
while Mr. Newhall simply desired a medium through 
which to represent the age which he essayed to 
reproduce. 

It is said that some men only become eloquent 
when the pen comes in contact with the white paper. 
Of Mr. Newhall, we should say that his genius found 
fullest play when he stood, stick in hand, before his 
case and, to the music of the clicking types, without 
the intervention of pen or paper, composed, in a 
double sense ; that is, a large portion of his work 
was never written, but was transferred from his 
brain through his nervous fingers and the type to 
the printer's form. 

Thus, it happened that these famous journals never 
existed on mouldy paper, nor even on the paper of 
his time, but were simply figments of his intellect. 
The alleged journals were only the key with which 
he introduced his readers to the society of the elders. 
The journals, bright and captivating as they are, 
form but a part of this work, which appears to me 
to stand the best chance of any literary production 
of Lynn authors to endure the test of time. 

321 



Hearths and Homes 

The sketches, besides their pithy style, have a quaint 
flavor of the soil. The rout of Hector Mclntyre in 
his battle with the phoca, was not better depicted by 
the Wizard of the North than the inglorious discom- 
fiture of Parson Shepard's eeling expedition on the 
Saugus River. 

The Judge was an Episcopalian, but he has other- 
wise spoken fair words of our Puritan divines, so we 
pardon him for inserting the incident that insinuates 
that our fighting parson was only human after all. 

" And the Dame will likewise make ready for us a 
bite of something whereby to stay our stomachs. And 
if you have a mind, Samuel, you may bring along your 
little red keg, for mine hath sacrament wine in it, 
and I will put a little something in ye same to warm 
our stomachs withal. For it is best, Samuel, sayd 
he, giving his eye a little turn, 'to go prepared to 
meet mishaps.' " 

The veracious chronicles of "the late Diedrich 
Knickerbocker" have charmed generations of readers, 
but as life-like as his Dutch farmers or as grotesque 
as his Connecticut pedagogue, Ichabod Crane, are 
Obadiah Oldpath's scenes of the scalping of Mr. Laigh- 
ton in Lynn Woods or the wonderful cure of Aaron 
Rhodes by the mysterious explosion of Dr. Tyndale's 
cue. 

There is a vein, too, of pathos in the touching 
story of Verna Humphrey that is none the less pure 
because it lacks the weirdness of Hawthorne's Hester 
Prynne, to which it is a kindred spirit from shadeland. 

In claiming for this work the prospect of a longer 

322 



of Old Lynn 

hold upon the memory of men than any other, I do 
not forget that Lynn never had a paucity of writers. 
Of the men who have passed on within our own time, 
we recall the Whig pen and the graceful verse of 
Josiah F. Kimball ; the trenchant force of the schol- 
arly Lewis Josselyn ; the caustic and diversified man- 
ner of the late Cyrus M. Tracy. Nor do I forget one 
yet living, though not now with us, that ready writer 
who was ever a leader in Lynn's progress — Peter L. 
Cox 1 — and many others whom I may not name. 

These men, however, wrote for bread and butter — 
their themes were of to-day. Their work was bright 

1 Peter L. Cox died in New York, October, 25, 1905. He began 
the publication of the Lynn Reporter in 1854, a semi-weekly paper 
that became famous in New England and favorably known through- 
out the country. 

In the columns of the Reporter, Mr. Cox advocated many public 
benefits, and in an article published in 1875 he said that he was the 
first to start a power press in Lynn ; first to publicly advocate the 
substitution of steam fire engines for the hand tubs ; the first to 
advocate the introduction of a city water supply ; the first to 
advocate the construction of a street railway for the city. The 
advocacy of the foregoing public utilities, all afterward secured for 
the city, is sufficient to link the name of Mr. Cox forever with that 
of the city. In 1854 he was Clerk of the Lynn Common Council, 
and in 1855, 1856, and 1857 he was Clerk of the Massachusetts 
Senate. He and his brother conducted the Lynn Reporter about 
twenty-five years, and in that long period of success taught the 
printing trade to many of Lynn's noted printers, and the fact that 
a man learned the trade under Peter L. Cox was a guarantee that 
he was a thorough workman. Prior to starting the Reporter, 
Mr. Cox worked on the Bay State, some time as foreman. The 
Bay State antedated the Reporter several years. 

He lived ten years beyond the Psalmist's term of human life. 
Though not a native of Lynn, he will be remembered as a builder 
of the city. 

323 



Hearths and Homes 

and readable when published, but the most sparkling- 
leading editorials find the common fate of newspaper 
work — the cold tomb of the public library. 

The author of " Lin " wrote at his leisure in the 
seclusion of his closet, from the past, over the present, 
for the future. 

To have held honorable positions with credit to the 
people and to himself in his native town is much, but 
to have written books that will entertain and instruct 
our children's children will give him more enduring- 
fame than the loudest plaudits that contemporaries 
could shower upon him, or any man, for any achieve- 
ments that are of to-day only. 

He wrought well what he undertook. To him we 
may well apply T swell's lines of the poise of the 
modest man : — 

"Ah ! men do not know how much strength is in poise, 
That he goes the farthest who goes far enough, 
And that all beyond that is just bother and stuff. 
No vain man matures, he makes too much new wood ; 
His blooms are too thick for the fruit to be good ; 
'T is the modest man ripens, 't is he that achieves, 
Just what 's needed of sunshine and shade he receives ; 
Grapes, to mellow, require the cool dark of their leaves." 



!24 





Cyrus Mason Tracy 



CYRUS MASON TRACY. 1 




lYNN does well to inscribe upon its temples of 
learning, the names of men and women whose 
lives have counted in the growth of the ancient 
town. Last, but not least, upon the roll of honor, has 
been written in enduring marble the name of Tracy. 
The happy thought of an appreciative mind suggested 
its application to this building so near to Mr. Tracy's 
home, and so near to the woods which he loved so well. 
Whiting, Shepard and Cobbet were early pastors. 
Ingalls, Burrill and Newhall were of our early and 
continuing families. Pickering and Lewis commem- 
orate women who were illustrators of our public 
school system. 

Gilbert White's " Natural History of Selborne " and 
Thoreau's " Walden Pond " have made classic ground 
of two little dots on the earth's surface ; and Tracy's 
"Essex Flora" and his mystic woodland rites have 
made Lynn Woods the mecca of reverent footsteps. 
The words of Mr. Tracy, speaking of another, seem 
to be singularly appropriate to apply to himself : - 

"It is not fitting that our ideas of respect for the 
dead should be ill-chosen or marked by any excess 

^rom an address delivered at the dedication of the Tracy 
School, May 17, 1899. 

325 



Hearths and Homes 

either way. To limit all our praises to the departed 
who have happened to die wealthy, would be to 
depress all our respect to a mere gold worship ; to 
see no virtue in any but popular favorites, often 
rude and mean as they are, is to burn incense to 
ignorance and make an idol of vice." 

To most of the people here it is needless to say 
that Mr. Tracy was not at any time in his life over- 
burdened with this world's goods. 

A quotation from his " Flora " will reveal why, 
though vulgar pecuniary rewards did not come to 
Tracy, the life work of this true child of nature was 
crowned with the success that ennobles man and his 
achievements. Speaking of one of his botanical quests 
he writes : — 

" Tired and thirsty, I was inwardly complaining of 
the toilsome and profitless route, when leaping down 
from a rough pole fence, I stood face to face with 
the most magnificent oak-leaved Gerardia I ever saw. 
Had the wealth of its yellow bells been coined to 
very gold in my hand, I could have felt no higher 
satisfaction than I had in seeing its four-footed stem, 
crowded with brilliant flowers, swaying to and fro 
in the warm westerly wind, the magic wand to charm 
away for the time every thought of fatigue. In a 
certain summer I had a kind of botanical vow, which 
I kept long inviolate, to let no day pass without the 
determination of at least one new species. I was 
fresh in the study then, and such an idea was 
nowise absurd. But one day had waned until the 
sun had actually gone down on my errantry which 
threatened to become night errantry, sure enough. 
A boggy meadow, often visited before, seemed the 

326 



of Old Lynn 

only available spot, and to it I turned with the reso- 
lution of forlorn hope. Fifteen minutes later, had 
my feet responded to my feelings, I should have been 
dancing among the hassocks for the discovery of the 
charming Cymbidium, which I had not seen before 
since I gathered its blushing beauties when a boy, 
in the meadows of Connecticut." 

Cyrus Mason Tracy was born in Norwich, Conn., 
May 7, 1824. In the year 1838 or 1839, for a single 
term, he attended the grammar school of Ward Six, 
having come to Lynn with his father's family. This 
is understood to be the only public-school training 
he ever had. When he was seven years old he had 
a severe sickness, which left him with a disability 
which death only could remove. He was apt in 
mechanical pursuits, but frail physically. His first 
employment was in the rope walk at West Lynn ; 
then with his father he entered the employ of Theo- 
philus N. Breed, first on South Common Street and 
later in the shoe kit factory at Breed's Pond, the 
value of which as a mill privilege was discovered by 
the elder Tracy. For a time he was in the Registry 
of Deeds at Salem ; then in the City Clerk's office in 
Lynn, under William Bassett and Charles Merritt. 
Thence on he had various callings, such as civil 
engineer, surveyor, conveyancer, notary, florist and 
principal of a music school. From 1867, the time of 
the establishment of the Lynn Transcript, for ten 
years he was its editor. For six years he was Pro- 
fessor of Botany and Materia Medica in the Massa- 
chusetts College of Pharmacy. He was also a Lecturer 

327 



Hearths and Homes 

upon Botany and kindred subjects before the Essex 
Institute. For twenty years he was a member of the 
Pine Grove Cemetery Commissioners, and for fifteen 
years the Secretary of the Board. From 1856 to 
1869 he was Clerk of the Common Council. Upon 
two historic occasions Mr. Tracy was the central 
figure. He delivered the poem at the dedication of 
the City Hall, on November 30, 1867, and the oration 
at the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the 
settlement of the town, June 17, 1879. He wrote 
the Lynn matter for Jewett's "Standard History of 
Essex County," which is considered by scholars as 
the best short history of Lynn ever written. His 
unexpected death prevented the carrying out of a 
plan to enlarge and extend that work. He twice 
codified the ordinances of the city and he compiled 
and edited for the City Council a history of the 
events leading up to the erection of the City Hall. 
It must be noted that he was one of the founders 
and life-long promoters of a society close to the hearts 
of our people — the Houghton Horticultural Society. 

After the death of Mr. Tracy, which occurred Sep- 
tember 28, 1891, his seatmate in the old Grammar 
School, his close friend for more than fifty years, 
wrote a sketch of Tracy, which, after these years, 
seems so fair, just and discriminating that I adopt it. 
Col. Gardiner Tufts, who within two short months 
followed him to the unseen world, wrote : — 

"Mr. Tracy, in many phases of character, was a 
unique personality. He was not a scholar from the 
schools. He was not brought up at the feet of 

328 



of Old Lynn 

Gamaliel. He did not acquire knowledge by study, 
as most people acquire it ; yet he was learned above 
his fellows. He knew by intuition. In many par- 
ticulars of ability he was the foremost man of Lynn. 
He could do many things with ease that were hard 
for most people to do at all. He could do difficult 
things with wonderful ease and affluence. His speech 
was felicitous. His thoughts and words came at first 
bidding so correctly that his composition rarely needed 
revision. No one in Lynn has excelled him in poetic 
writing. He knew more of local history than any 
other person of our city." 

This characterization by Colonel Tufts is the defi- 
nition of a man of genius rather than a man of 
talent or ability. 

Mr. Tracy was a man of genius. Realizing this, 
we can understand how without the discipline of 
the schools he assimilated and digested omnivorous 
reading — how he became a walking encyclopedia, 
full and fluent, upon all subjects. With the virtue 
of genius he had its vice inertia. The closing para- 
graph of the preface to the edition of the " Flora," 
issued after his death by his children, contained a 
hint and a half promise : " This explanation will 
make plain our reason in bringing out first a book 
requiring re-writing rather than one of the many 
already prepared. It was the first in his thought 
and plan, therefore first in our execution." 

The "Flora" appeals to a limited class of students. 
The exquisite prose-poetry and the melodious verse 
of these unpublished volumes would be welcome in 
all the homes of Lynn. If he had possessed the 

329 



Hearths and Homes 

business alertness of Whittier, to whom he is closely 
akin as the Poet of Nature of New England, dainty 
editions of his prose and verse would have been 
treasured among our favorite books. 

As a poet I have mentioned his name in company 
with Whittier. As a writer of pure, pellucid Saxon 
English in prose form he was unequaled. Dean Swift 
long ago laid down that "proper words in proper 
places made the true definition of a style." Which, 
however, is not the definition, but the character of 
a good style. Tracy used proper words in proper 
places. His prose was Addisonian, and if he had 
been merely a talented man we might have suspected 
that he had acquired it by following Dr. Johnson's 
advice, that "whoever wishes to attain an English 
style, familiar, but not coarse, and elegant, but not 
ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the 
volumes of Addison." 

Death is often the beginning of fame for great 
men. Little men are buried and forgotten. After 
a while familiar remembrance of the earthly part 
of man fades away, and then, with ever-increasing 
brightness, the intellectual force of his life remains 
to aid and instruct the community. So may it be 
with Tracy. 

Mr. Tracy was a diamond in the rough. The 
points of the diamond will cut. His pen was sharp 
and controversial when he dealt with current matters. 
He entered the lists with all comers and his pen 
pricked many a sham. His ideals were high — he 
lived a life without reproach and with an enfeebled 

330 



of Old Lynn 

frame accomplished so much as to render him worthy 
of emulation to those who follow him. Mr. Tracy 
was a versatile, many-sided man. The people have 
called him the ''Father of the Lynn Public Forest." 
The title is appropriate. His inner inspiration was 
to teach the people of Lynn that they had in the 
woods an " asylum of inexhaustible pleasure." Of 
all the work he accomplished in his useful life he 
would undoubtedly desire to be remembered for this. 

He formed the Exploring Circle many years since. 
Parenthetically I may say that in the secret archives 
of this Exploring Circle there is a mine of local 
history which ought some time to be opened up for 
posterity by this devoted band of scholars. He led 
parties of enthusiastic naturalists to scenes of beauty 
and grandeur hitherto unseen, save by his eyes. He 
dedicated hilltops and glens with mystic rites. He 
organized the Trustees of the Free Public Forest. 
He solicited funds and lands for the use of the 
people forever. Under the trust of the Free Public 
Forest, Penny Brook Glen, Dungeon Rock, and the 
two hundred acres of picturesque wildness became 
the heritage of Lynn. If the conditions surrounding 
the woods had not changed, the voluntary plan of 
Mr. Tracy would have accomplished nearly all that 
lovers of the woods desired, independent of legis- 
lation. The Water Board's ponds and girdling roads 
punctured the woods and exposed them to undesirable 
occupation. 

Here I may be allowed to say that in his last years 
he was troubled by what seemed to him a dangerous 

331 



Hearths and Homes 

diversion of the control of the woods from his Forest 
Trust to the Park Commissioners. From an intimate 
knowledge of his scheme and of the work done since, 
I think he was unduly alarmed. So far the Park 
Commissioners have proceeded on lines laid down by 
Mr. Tracy in his " Circular Statement " issued by the 
Forest Trustees, January 12, 1882. As long as the 
purpose of the contributors of land and money to 
keep the woods in local Lynn authority is observed, 
the simple, natural development outlined by him will 
be maintained. Mr. Tracy's zeal, loyalty and spirit 
pointed the way for his successors. That to-day the 
whole magnificent domain is the people's is due to 
the momentum which he gave. The children of 
Lynn, in all generations will cherish and revere the 
memory of Cyrus M. Tracy, for the marvelous gift 
to which his seer's vision guided him. 



332 




Samuel Hawkes 



SAMUEL HAWKES. 1 



PAMUEL HAWKES, who was born in Saugus, 
|§§g|| December 4, 1816, died there March 24, 1903. 
He was the son of Ahijah and Theodate 
(Pratt) Hawkes. 

. His paternal line of ancestry was from Adam 1 (the 
immigrant), John," Ebenezer, 3 Samuel, 4 Ebenezer, 6 Ahi- 
jah, 6 Samuel. 7 

His mother descended from Richard Pratt (the 
immigrant) of Charlestown, who came from Maldon, 
Co. Essex, England. 

The succeeding generations of the Pratt family 
lived in Maiden and Lynn. 

Adam Hawkes also came to Lynn through Charles- 
town, where he sold his property in 1634, and he is 
found in Lynn in the original division of the land in 
1638 with a grant of one hundred acres. This grant 
was in that part of the town now well known as 
Hawkes' Corner, North Saugus, and the site of Adam 
Hawkes' first home, Close Hill, has been in the 
unbroken holding of his descendants since, and was a 
treasured possession of Samuel Hawkes, through life. 

The place of his death was the house of Richard 
Hawkes, which is upon the site of the second house 



From Register of the Lynn Historical Society, 1903. 
333 



Hearths and Homes 

built by Adam Hawkes. Most of his life was spent 
in the near-by house, also upon the original grant, 
which was the home of his father, Ahijah Hawkes, 
who the year before Samuel's birth, became Chair- 
man of the first Board of Selectmen of the newly 
detached town, to which was given the ancient name 
of the original plantation, "Saugus." 

Mr. Hawkes cast his first Presidential vote for 
Martin Van Buren. He was a Democratic member 




SAMUEL HAWKES HOUSE 



of the General Court in 1854, the last year that the 
Commonwealth had a Whig Governor. This Governor 
was Emory Washburn. 

One of the pleasant memories of his life, to which he 
frequently referred, was his appointment by Governor 
William E. Russell as a delegate to the National 
Farmers' Congress held at Sedalia, Missouri, Nov- 
ember 10-11-12, 1891. He attended the Congress. 

334 



of Old Lynn 

His associates from Massachusetts were Ex-Governor 
George S. Boutwell and Philander Williams of Taunton. 

He rendered efficient service as Chairman of the 
Boards of Selectmen and Overseers of the Poor and 
as Moderator of Town Meetings. By general consent 
his suggestions as to the amount of the annual appro- 
priations of the town were adopted. 

He was deeply interested in the Essex Agricultural 
Society of which he for many years was the Saugus 
Trustee. He was a frequent and effective speaker 
at the Farmers' Institutes throughout the County. 

Although reared on the farm he never followed 
general farming, but was known as a successful 
cranberry grower. 

He was also a large land owner, and from him the 
City of Lynn acquired the title to the greater portion 
of what is now Walden Pond. 

Mr. Hawkes was never married. He was a birth- 
right member of the Society of Friends and through 
life was a frequent attendant at its meetings. A 
portion of his school training was obtained at the 
well-known denominational institution of the Society, 
the New England Yearly Meeting Boarding School 
at Providence, Rhode Island, of which he was a 
benefactor in his old age. 

From its establishment in 1888, he had been a 
member of the Sinking Fund Commission of Saugus, 
to which he was re-elected at the March meeting, 
though known to be seriously ill. 

In his death the town lost its best equipped and 
most thoroughly trustworthy public man. 

335 



Hearths and Homes 

He was the President of the Hawkes Family Asso- 
ciation, and delivered an able genealogical address at 
the great family gathering at the old homestead at 
its two hundred and fiftieth Anniversary in 1880. 

Of late years his favorite place of resort was the 
Registry of Deeds at Salem, where he became the 
recognized authority upon land titles. He was like- 
wise a close student of New England life and of 
genealogical lore. 

He was a member of the Lynn Historical Society 
and an interested attendant and participant at its 
meetings. 



336 




On 

Cp v ag 



NDEX 



PAGE 

Abbott, Abiel (Rev.) . . . 222 

Aborn, Aaron 256 

Ebenezer 261 

Abousett (Rivei) 3 

Acadia 157 

Adams, Benjamin (Rev.) 251,255 
John (Pres.) . . . 190, 221 

Thomas 181 

Adventurers, The 189 

Aldersey, Samuell . . . .181 

Alley, Deborah 6S 

Hugh (Capt.) .... 68, 69 

John, Jr. 276 

Rebecca 66, 67 

Samuel ^H, 68 

Sarah 58, 68 

Anchor Tavern 16 

Andros, Edmund (Sir) . . . 

33, 161, 179, 198 
209,210, 211,216 

Aplton, Samuel 35 

Appleton, Samuel, Jr., 140, 141 

Appomattox 279 

Arbella, The 183, 184 

Armitage, Jane ... .151 

Joseph 137 

Arnold, Benedict . . 5, 19, 196 
Atkinson, Eliza M. (Mrs.) . 253 
Attwill, Zachariah . . 173, 174 

Bacheller, Jonathan . . 6, 317 



PAGE 

Baird, William L 11 

Baker, Daniel C 202 

Edward 137 

Bancroft, James . . . 255, 261 

John 269 

Nathaniel (Capt.) 247, 252 
255, 256. 257 
258, 259. 261 
Thomas (Capt.) .... 269 
Barber's Historical Collec- 
tions 9 

Barnes, Isaac 222 

Bartlett, William 222 

Basset, Isac 68 

John 68 

Bassett, William . ... 327 

Bay State, The 323 

Bee, John & Co. 137 

Becx, John . 14:;. 144, 145 

Bellingham, Richard (Gov.) 

141, 181, 284, 286 

Bennett, Frank P 28 

Samuel 16, 17 

Berry, John . . . 252, 255, 261 
Black Will (Indian) .... 81 

Boardman, Aaron 18 

Abijah 15, 19 

Samuel 27 

Sarah (Miss) . . . : . 19 

Sewall 27 

William 18 



339 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Body of Liberties of 1641,120,122 

Boston 2, 3, 129 

Boston Harbor 2 

Boston Street 5, 196 

Bostwick, E. Warner ... 32 

Boundary Line 14 

Bowdoin, J 53, 54 

Boyce, Samuel 165 

Bracebridge Hall (Irving) 240 
Bradstreet, Simon (Gov.) 184,198 

Brage, Josiah 256 

Bragg, Josiah 250 

Braman, Milton P. (Rev.) . 222 
Braintree (Iron Works) . . 138 

Brattle, Thomas 35 

Breakheart Hill 78 

Breed, Aaron 270 

(Col.) 174 

Desire 68 

Ebenezer 08, 69 

Ephraim 174 

Frederick . . . 169, 174 

Hannah 68 

Henry A 12 

Henry H. (Mrs.) ... 253 

Isaiah 68 

Jabez 6S 

Lydia 68 

Nathan 68 

Nehemiah 68, 69 

Richard 270 

Samuel 69 

Theophilus N 327 

Breed's End 62 

Bridge over Saugus River . 5 

Bridges, Robert (Capt.) . . 134 

142,143, 144,149 

150,151,152,153 

154, 155, 156, 157 



PAGE 

Brintnall, John 147 

Brooks, Marshall S. . . 26, 27 

Brown, Isaac 312 

James 256, 201 

Josua • • 255 

Nicholas 196 

Samuell 181 

William 247 

Browne, John 181 

Bulkeley, Peter 37 

Burchsted, Benjamin B. . 68 
Burchstead, Henry .... 171 

Burgis, Robert 137 

Burnap, Robert 269 

Burrill, Ebenezer . .201, 303 

George 196, 198 

John 47, 76, 151 

John, Jr. (Speaker) . . 

86, 199, 200, 201 

John, Sr 198 

Samuel 201 

Theophilus 160 

Butler, Benjamin F. (Gen.), 222 
Buttrick, John (Maj.) ... 247 

Cape Cod Harbor 207 

Carleton, James H 237 

Carver,John(Gov.Plymouth),207 

Castle Hill 78 

Chadbourn, B 53 

Chadwell, Harris 174 

Chamberlain, Mellen(Judge),245 

Chandler, Peleg W 227 

Charles River 2 

Charlestown 3 

Charlestown Road .... 259 
Charter of the Colony of the 
Massachusetts Bay . 

101, 180, 181, 182 



340 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Chase & Huse 11 

Chatterton, Thomas . . . 320 
Cheever, Abner . 173, 174, 256 

Edward 31, 117 

Thomas . . . 18, 115, 147 

Chelsea 14, 15 

Child, (Dr.) 13(3 

Choate, Rufus 227 

Choose Hill . . . 98, 100 

Church, Benjamin (Capt.) . 213 
Church Members . . . .185 
Cinder Banks, The . . . .120 
Cleaveland, Nehemiah (Dr.) 

222 

Close Hill 333 

Clough, Josiah ...... 10 

Coates, Ezra (Parish Clerk) 

104 
Cobbet, Thomas (Rev. ) . 152 
Coddington, William . . . 184 

Cogswell, John 147 

Margaret (Gifford) . 147 
Collins, Elizabeth Jr. ... 68 

Enoch 68 

Lois 68 

Samuel .... 68, 173, 174 

William 273 

Zaccheus 68 

Colonial Charter . 150, 200, 239 

Colonial Houses 21 

Colonial Records - . 134, 141 
Committee of Safety . . . 257 
Common Prayer Book . . . 206 

Commoners 188 

Conway, William P. (Mrs.), 253 
Cook, Samuel .... 254, 279 
Cooke, Parsons (Rev. Dr.) . 

11, 161, 163, 166 
Court of Assistants . . 185, 186 



PAGE 

Cowdrey, William . . . 269 

Cox Tavern 278 

Cox, Peter L 323 

Craddock, Matthew, 181,183,225 

Crane, Ichabod 322 

Cromwell, Oliver, 89, 157, 208, 215 
237, 282, 2S8, 290 
Crystal Brook (Oaklandvale) 

24, 28, 34 
Cummings, Cyrus 221 

David 221 

Cushing, Caleb . . 53, 54, 222 

Thomas 53, 54 

Dagyr, John Adam - . . 195 

Danforth, John 261 

Danvers 236 

Davenport, (Lieut.) .... 190 

Leif F 266 

D'Aulnay, (French Gov ) . . 

155, 157 

Dexter, Thomas 

81, 82, 83, 139, 153 

Dixey, William 2, 297 

Downing, Caleb 48 

Elija 276 

Emanuel . 282, 283, 285, 288 

George (Sir) 283 

Downing Road 48 

Draper, Eben 41 

George ... ... 41 

Ira (Deacon) 40 

Dudley, Joseph (Gov.) . 83, 271 

Joseph (Pres.) .... 204 

Thomas (Gov.) 2, 184, 283, 2S7 

Duncan, James H. . . . 222 



Earl of Lincoln . 
Eastern Railroad 



184 
6, 11 



341 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Eaton, Theophilus ... 181 

Daniel ... .57 

Edmands, Lott . . . 37, 76, 77 

William 42, 43 

Endicott (Capt.) . . .208,213 

(Gov.) 141 

John . . ISO, 181, 2S1, 285 

286, 287, 289, 205 

Epps, Samuel (Capt. ) . - 59 

Essex Agricultural Society, 219 

Essex County Founders . . 230 

Essex Deeds 147 

Essex Flora . . . 325, 326, 329 
Essex Minute Men .... 5 

Estes, Anna 68 

Hannah 68 

Martha 68 

Ruth 68 

Exploring Circle 331 

Farley, Michael . . . 53, 54 
Farrington, William . . 176 

Fay, Richard S 223 

Federal Street 10 

Felton, Cornelius C. ... 40 

First Bridge 5 

First Fire Engine 5 

First Parish Meeting House, 159 
Flagg, Ebenezer (Rev.) . . 109 

John (Dr.) .... 109, 110 

Flint, William 248 

Foote, Joshua 144 

Forest Street (Oaklandvale), 23 
Foster, Andrew 256 

Jed'h 53, 54 

Fowle, Susanna 110 

Foxcroft, George 181 

Freeman's Oath . . . 149, 150 
Friends, Society of . . 163, 164 



PAGE 

. 171 



Fuller, Joseph 
Oliver . . 



Gardiner, Jas. (Dr.) . . 48, 1 10 
169, 276 

Garrison House 99 

General Court, The, 185, 187,188 

263, 264, 265, 270 

General Electric Co. . . . 8, 12 

Gifford, John, 141,142,143,145,146 

Margaret 146 

Gill, Moses (Lieut. Gov.) 53, 54 

God of Moses 291 

Goffe, Thomas . . . .181, 225 

Gowing, Daniel 261 

James 255 

Joseph (Capt.) (Lieut.) 
247, 255, 258, 259, 261, 273 
Grand Army of the Re- 
public 261 

Graves, Elizabeth .... 68 

Gray, Abraham 110 

Horace (Justice) . . 110 

Lucia 110 

William 110 

Greeley, Horace 305 

Hadley, Thomas 248 

Hall of Paul and Ellis New- 
hall 175 

Hallowell, Henry . 172, 274, 275 

Theophilus 176 

Hammersmith (Village) . . 82 
Hammond, Edward (Capt.) . 39 
Hancock, John (Gov.) . 198, 235 
Hannibal (slave) ... 64, 65, 66 

Hart, Ebenezer 262 

Isaac 269 

John 256, 261, 303 



342 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Hart, Joseph 303 

Samuel 303 

Zerubbabel 261 

Hart's Inn 196, 107 

Hartshorne, Timothy . . . 269 

Harwood, George 181 

Haven, Joseph 25 

Haverhill 237 

Hawkes, Adam . 34, 39, 40, 50 

51, 57, 61, 77, 333, 334 

Adam Augustus ... 39 

Ahijah .... 64, 333, 334 

Daniel 39 

Ebenezer, 40, 47,58,62, 64, 65 
66, 67, 68, 333 

Elizabeth 26, 37 

Elkanah . 25, 26, 27, 29, 30 
31,32,38,39,40 

Eunice 40 

Ezra 26 

George L. . . . 57, 58, 279 

Grace 26 

Hannah 37 

John ... 34, 40, 50. 57, 58 
254, 262, 333 

John, Sr 30 

Jonathan 25, 30 

Joseph 77 

Love 26 

Lydia 40 

Margaret (Cogswell) . 47 

Matthew 68 

Moses . 46, 47, 50, 51, 147 

Nathan . 26, 38, 40, 41, 47 

48,49, 50,53.171 

172, 253, 275, 276 

Nathan D 26, 253 

Nathan, Jr 26, 255 

Philadelphia 68 



PAGE 

Hawkes, Rebeckah .... 68 

Samuel . . . 65, 66, 69, 299 

333-336 

Sarah 47, 68 

Sarah (Haven) .... 30 
Sarah (Hitchings) ... 37 
Theodate (Pratt) . . . 333 
Thomas . . . 25, 29, 30, 39 
40, 58, 147 
Hawkes' Brook . . . . 48, 57 

Hawkes' Corner 333 

Hawkes' Pond ... 57, 254 

Hawthorne 234, 266 

John 137 

(Mr.) 190 

Hayman, Nathan S3 

Samuel 83 

Haynes (Gov.) 286 

Hayward, John (Notary 

Public) 36 

Heard, John 222 

Henchman, Nathaniel (Rev.) 

163, 166 

Herrick, Horatio G 221 

Martin (Dr.) . . . 248, 262 
Higginson, (Rev. Mr.) . .210 

Hill, John 137 

Hitchcock, Edward (Prof.) 94 

Hitchings, Daniel . ■ 33, 34, 35 

36, 37, 40, 77 

Eunice 26 

Ezra 196 

Joseph 39 

Susannah 47 

Holten, Samuel (Dr.) . . 53, 54 

Holyoke, Edward 195 

Holy Scriptures 206 

Hood, Abner 273 

George 202, 311 



343 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Houghton, John C 202 

Houghton Horticultural So- 
ciety 328 

House of Representatives . 4 
Howard, Mrs. {nee Boardman) 19 
Howland, William . . .312 
Howlett's Pond . . . . 48, 132 

Howlett's Mill 147 

Humfrey, John, 151, 183, 184,225 
Humphrey, John . ISO, 181, 184 

Susan (Lady) 184 

Verna(Lin) 322 

Humphrey Street 184 

Humphrey's Pond . - . .184 

Hutchins, Thomas .... 181 

Hutchinson, Francis . . 58 

Thomas (Gov. ), 153, 200, 204 

264, 289 

Indian Alarm 98 

Indian Rock 46, 50 

Ingalls, Edmund .... 2, 297 

Francis 2, 297 

Ipswich (Chebacco Parish) . 147 

Ipswich (Town Hill) . . 297 

Iron Works Disputes . . . 141 

IronWorks,MonatocotRiver,131 

Iron Works, 4, 17, 31, 35, 77, 80 

82, 83, 130, 133, 134, 135 

136,137,138,139,140,141 

142,143,144,147,153,157 

158, 303 

Irving, Washington .... 240 

Item, Lynn 308 

Jackson (Major) ... 197 

Jacobs, George 237 

Jasper . . . '. 94 

Jeffrey, Joseph . . . . 00, 254 
Joseph, Jr 254, 256 



PAGE 

Jeffrey, Priscilla 60 

Jenks, Joseph 16 

Johnson, Benjamin .... 175 

Benjamin N 117 

David N. 49 

Edward (Capt.) . . 135, 158 
Isaac . • 181, 183. 184, 225 

Richard 166 

Sam (Dr.) .... 30, 330 

Keayne, Robert (Capt.) . . 

141, 144, 157 

Kent, Paul 221 

Kimball, Josiah F. . . . 323 
King, Daniel P 223 

(Master) 202 

King CharlesII, 157, 209, 214, 237 

King George III 215 

King Henry VIII 206 

King James I (Defender of 

the Faith), . 179, 205, 207 

214, 216 

King James II ... 192, 209 

King Philip's War ... 33 

King's Chapel 113 

Kittredge, Edward A. (Dr.), 41 

Thomas 222 

Knight, Charles (Historian), 205 
Kunkshamooshaw, Abagail, 192 

David 192 

La Fayette (Gen.) 5 

Lake Quannapowit . . 100, 264 
La Tour, (French Gov.), 155, 157 
Laud (Archbishop of Canter- 
bury) • . • 205, 20S, 290 

Laws of Moses 289 

Leader, Richard 

82, 83, 131, 13S, 141 



344 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Lear, Tobias 197 

Lee Hall 175 

Lee, Jesse 175, 176 

Lewis, Alonzo, 64, 159, 160, 162 
192, 200, 312, 315 

John 64, 66 

Lexington Alarm 256 

Lexington Green, April 19, 

1775 ...... 216, 221 

Leyden (Holland) Pilgrims 207 
Lidgett, (Lt. Col.) . . . .211 

Lincoln, Earl of 2 

Lindsey, John 271 

Lodge, Henry Cabot . . • 259 
Lord, Otis P. (Judge) ... 222 
Loring, George B. (Dr.) . . 223 
Louisburg (French Gibral- 
tar) 167 

Lowell, James R 324 

Lummus, Charles F. ... 308 

Lynn 210 

Lynn Academy ... 11 

Lynn Bard 93 

Lynn Great Woods .... 192 
Lynn Militia Company . 150 
Lynn Regis, England . ■ 4 

Lynn Woods 266, 322 

Lynnfield . 7, 95, 115, 247, 240 
Lynnfield Muster Roll . - . 

255, 261, 262 

Macaulay, Thomas B. (His- 
torian) 206 

Mack, Elisha 222 

Main Street (Saugus) ... 23 
Makepeace, Jonathan ... 64 

Malbon, John 133 

Mansfield, Andrew, 188, 254, 256 
262,271,273 



PAGE 

Mansfield, Daniel . 18, 257, 258 
262, 273 

John 273 

Joseph 137 

Oliver Fuller 98 

Richard 64 

Samuel 256 

Thomas 173, 174 

William . 169, 174, 256, 262 
Marblehead (Abbot Hall) . 260 

Marret, Sarah 26 

Marriage, Colonial Statute of 

154 
Marsh, James Rumney (In- 
dian Deed to Hitch- 

ings) 35, 36 

Marshall, Thomas .... 

16, 153, 156, 264 

Martin, George H 231 

Mary Queen of Scots . . • 205 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 215 
Massachusetts Historical So- 
ciety ...... 85 

Massachusetts, Sixth Regi- 
ment, Baltimore, April 
19, 1861 .... 215, 216 

Masury, Joseph . . 26, 27 
Mavericke, Moses ... 50 
Mayflower (Cape Cod Har- 
bor) 207 

Mclntyre, Hector ( Scott), 322 

Mead, John 262 

Melrose 25 

Menotomy 248 

Merrill, Benjamin . . . 308 

Merrimack River 241 

Merritt, Charles 327 

Methodist Meeting House, 

(First) 159 



345 



INDEX 



l'AGE 

Milton (Blue Hills) ... 297 

Minute Men 5 

Mirror, The Lynn . . . . 30S 

Mistick 282 

Moody, William H 220 

Morton, Perez 53 

Mottey, Joseph (Parson) . . 50 
Mount Agamenticus . . . 156 
Mudge, Benjamin F. . . . 309 

Enoch 175 

Mulliken, Samuel 

Munroe, Timothy, 171, 254, 255 
259, 277, 27S, 279 

Nahant 7, 81 

Nahant Bank 12 

Needham, Daniel . . 262, 273 
Newburyport Turnpike . . 61 

Newhall, Abijah 68 

Asa . . . 60, 255, 262, 271 
Asa Tarbell . 223, 273. 277 

Benjamin 303 

B. F 96 

Charles 169 

Charles Henry . . . .161 

Daniel 68 

Elizabeth 255 

Ellis 175, 274 

Elmer Boardman ... 19 

Ezekiel 255, 262 

Hannah 39 

Jacob (Landlord) . 104,152 
262, 273 

James 273 

James Robinson . . 66, 157 
160, 299, 301-324 

Jonathan 255 

Josiah 223, 277 

Mary 255 



PAGE 

Newhall, Micajah . . .171.276 

Nathaniel 255 

Onesimus 256 

Paul 175, 274 

Sarah 255 

Sarah (Tarbell) .... 255 
Thomas . . .195, 303, 320 
Thomas B. . . 309, 310, 312 

William 262 

Nichols, Andrew 222 

Noell, Increase 181 

Norman Conquest 119 

Northend, William D. . . . 220 

Norwood, David 256 

William 256 

Nourse, Aaron 262 

Rebecca 254 

Nowell, Increase 141 

Nurse, Rebecca 58 

Oaklandvale 78 

Old Essex Chapter, S.A.R., 259 
' ' Old Tunnel ' ' Meeting House 

64, m, 161, 167, 175, 266, 267 
Oldpath, Obadiah (Lin), 318, 322 
Oliver, Henry .... 172, 276 

Henry K. 223 

Onslow, Arthur (Sir) ... 200 
Ordinance of Marriage . .154 

Orne, Samuel 250 

Otis, James 53, 54 

Palfray, John Gorham (Dr.) 

203, 205 

Palmer, J 53 

Park Commissioners . . 332 

Parker, Benjamin . . . 23, 116 

David (Major) (Capt.) 

104, 248 



346 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Parker, Thomas 269 

Parris, Samuel (Rev.) . 59, 254 
Parsons, Ebenezer . . 262, 312 

Mary A. (Mrs) . . . .114 

Obediah (Rev, ) .... 176 
Pattee, W. S. (Dr.), 136, 137, 138 

Paule, John 17 

Payne, William 140 

Peabody, Dean 312 

Peabody (Lexington Monu- 
ment) 279 

Pearson, John 269 

Pelsue, John 256 

Penn, William 164 

Penny Brook 48, 69 

Pepperell, William (Sir) . . 30 
Pepys, Samuel (Diary) . . 69 
Perkins, John .... 247, 262 
Perry, Thaddeus . . . 256, 262 

Pery, Richard 181 

Peters, Hugh 208, 264 

Phebe (slave) .... 64, 65, 66 
Phillips, George W 28 

John 49 

Pickering, Timothy, 221, 222, 224 

Timothy, Jr 53, 60 

Pilgrims, The .... 208, 216 
Pinchion, William . . . .181 
Pine Tree Shilling .... 4 

Pirates' Lookout 91 

Plantation, The . . . . 185, 189 

Plough Plain 34 

Plummer, Caroline .... 40 
Plymouth Rock .... 106,208 

Pompey (slave) 88, 93 

Pool, John (Capt.) .... 53 

Poole, Jona 269, 270 

Poore, Ben : Perley . . . . 223 
Potter, Nicholas 137 



PAGE 

Pottery at Salem . . . .136 

Pranker's Pond 73 

Pratt, John 276 

Richard 333 

Prescott, James 53 

Preston, Levi (Capt.) 245,246,247 

Province Laws 121 

Provincial Charter . . 161, 192 
Prynne, Hester(Hawthorne),322 
Purchess (Purchis), John . 140 

Oliver 140 

Purinton, James 68 

Puritan Commonwealth in 

New England .... 290 

Puritan Exodus $ 

Puritan Sabbath, The . . . 103 

Puritan Theocracy . . 16, 161 

237, 263 

Puritanism 106 

Puritans 184, 208, 209 

Putnam, Samuell .... 255 

Quakers 163, 165 

Queen Elizabeth . . . 205, 206 

Randolph, Edward .... 

198, 209, 211, 212 
Read, Philip (Dr.) . . .146 

Reading 7 

Reading (Lynn Village) . . 266 
Records of Lynn, The . . .188 
Registry of Deeds .... 187 

Reporter, Lynn 323 

Rhodes, Aaron 322 

Thomas .... 169, 174 
Richardson, William . . . 251 
Riddon (Raddin), Benjamin 270 
Robinson, James 196 

John (Rev.) 207 



347 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Roby, Joseph (Rev.) 48, 117, 257 

Rachel (Proctor) . .101 

Rosewell, Henry (Sir) . ISO, 181 

Rowell, Joseph M 202 

Rowley, Thomas 321 

Ruggles, George 138 

Russell, Jason .... 2.">0 ( 255 

Sadler, Richard (First Clerk 

of the^Writs) . . .196 

Salem 129, 210 

Salem Gazette .... 304, 305 
Salem, North Bridge, Feb- 
ruary 28, 1775 .... 221 

Salem Pottery 136 

Salem Quarterly Court . 17 
Salem Turnpike .... 6, 9 

Salmon, Daniel 187 

Salt Work 132 

Saltonstall, Leverett . . 222 

Richard (Sir)lSl, 183. 184,225 
Sanderson, Howard K., 248, 249 
Sargent, Nathaniel Peaslee, 60 
Saugus . • 7, 15, 49, 81, 95, 101 

Saugus, River of 3 

Saugus River, . . 4s, 57. 91, 101 

254, 282 

Saunders, Edward W.,26, 27, 2S 

Savage, James .... 134, 136 

Thomas 17, 143 

Saxon Gavelkind 119 

Scott, Andrew A 4, 79 

Scott's Mills 4 

Second Parish (Lynnfield) . 162 
Second Parish (Saugus) 274. 275 
Sewall, Samuel (Chief Justice) 

196, 220, 304 
Sewall's (Samuel) Diary . . 85 
Shakespeare 206 



PAGE 

Sharpe, Tho 184 

Shawmut 2 

Sheldon, Ephraim, Jr. . . 256 

Francis 256 

Shepard, Jeremiah (Rev.) . 

8, 165, 198, 212, 322 
Shepherd, William .... 293 
Sherman, Nathaniel . . . 

247, 255, 261 

Shorey, John L 202 

Shute, Richard 171 

Samuel (Gov.) 199 

Silsbee, Nehemiah .... 275 
"Six Hundred Acres, The " 

31. 42 

Smith, Amos 256 

Southcott, Thomas . . 180, 181 
Sparhawk, Nathaniel (Rev.) 112 

Spooner, W 53 

Stamp Act 204 

Standard History of Essex 

County (Jewett) . . 32S 
State Constitution ( Mass.), 122 
Stickney, Jeremiah C. . . 

309, 310, 311, 312 

Stocker, Eben 62 

Strawberry Brook . . . 190 

Striker, Joseph 68 

Stuart Kings 214 

Suffolk Deeds .... 134, 137 
13S, 142, 145 

Swone, John 256 

Swain, John 256 

Swaine, Jeremy 269 

Swampscott 7 

Sweetser, Samuel 273 

Samuel, Jr 40 

Swett, Samuel 110 

William Gray (Rev.) . 110 



34S 



INDEX 



l'AGE 

Swift (Dean) 330 

Tapley, Henry F 70 

Tarbell, Cornelius .... 254 

Elizabeth 50, 58 

Elizabeth Cook .... 254 

John 59, 254 

Jonathan . . . . 58, 59, 60 
253, 254, 255, 270, 273, 279 
Jonathan, Jr. . . 253, 254 
Mary (Felton) . . . . 253 
Mary (Sharpe) .... 254 

Sarah 255 

Tarbox, John 137 

Taylor, Anna 87, 116 

Christopher 86 

David 11 

Edward T 49 

Eldad 53 

James . . .81, 85, 80, 116 

William 115, 116 

Thacher, Thomas Cushing 

(Rev.) 176 

Third or West Parish (Saugus) 

47, 49 
Thomson-Houston Electric Co. 

302 
Thoreau's "Walden Pond, " 325 
Tichborne, Robert (Sir) . . 142 

Ting, William 144 

Tingle, William 137 

Tirrell, Minot, Jr 312 

Tomlins, Edward .... 4, 187 

Townsend, Daniel, 248, 249, 250 

251, 252, 253 

256, 260, 262, 278 

Jacob 250 

John 250, 269 

Mary (Hutchinson) . . 249 



PAGE 

Townsend, Thomas, 250,252,255 

William H 253 

Zerviah 250 

Zerviah, Mrs. (Upton) . 

250, 252 

Tracy, Cyrus Mason . 299, 323 

325-332 

Transcript, Lynn 327 

Treadwell, John (Rev.) .8,257 
Tucker, Ichabod . . .221, 222 

Tufts, David 7 

Gardiner (Col.) . . 328, 329 

Richard 7 

Turner, Nathaniel . . . 4, 187 
Tyndale (Dr.) 322 

Underhill (Capt.) 282 

Upton, Abra . 256 

John .... 250, 256, 262 

John, Jr 273. 277 

Zerviah 250 

Vassall, Samuel 181 

William 181, 1S4 

Ven, John 181 

Waite, Jonathan .... 115 

John 115 

Walker, Richard 156 

Walnut Street . . . .61, 67 

Walpole, Horace 321 

Walton, Izaak 74 

Nathan 262 

Ward, Nathaniel (Rev.) . . 284 

Washbourne, Mr 224 

Washington, George (Presi- 
dent) 5, 54, 197 

Waver ly Oaks 233 

Webb, Henry .... 140, 144 



349 



INDEX 



TAG E 

Wellman, Jesse . . 252,255, 262 

Jonathan 255, 262 

Thomas 256, 262 

Whetcombe, Symon . 180, 1S7 

Whitcomb, John 53 

Whitman, Walt 307 

White, Gilbert, "Natural His- 
tory of Selborne" . . :'>•-'•"> 

John 35 

Whiting, Elizabeth St. John, 319 
Samuel (Rev.) . 4, 152, 319 

William 319 

Whitmore, William H. . . 284 
Whittier, John G. . . 297, 330 

Wiggins, Thomas 137 

Wiley, Thomas 147 

Caleb 10 

William and Mary . . . . 121 
William of Orange, 207, 211, 238 
Williams, Roger . 282, 288, 289 
Willis, Thomas . . 4, 187, 195 
Winslow, Josiah . . . 141, 144 
Josiah (Gov.) 213 



PAGE 

Winthrop, John (Gov.) . 53, 54 

153, 225, 281, 282, 283 

284, 285, 287, 288, 295 

John, Jr. (Gov. Conn.) . 

130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 150 

John, Sr 183, 184 

Robert, Jr. ... 130, 131 
Withington, Leonard (Rev. 

Dr.) 222 

Wizard of the North . . . 322 

Wolf Hill 163 

Wolton (Walton) Nathaniel, 256 

Timo 255 

' ' Wonder -Working Provi- 
dence of Sion's Saviour 
in New England" . . 136 
Wood, John . . . . 2, 297 

William 297 

Wright, Nathaniel . . . .181 
Richard 186 



Young, John (Sir) 



. 180, 181 



350 



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